Effects of Dietary Taurine on the Growth, Digestive Enzymes, and Antioxidant Capacity in Juvenile Sea Cucumber, Apostichopus japonicus

Taurine has been widely used as a growth- or health-promoting additive in aquatic animals because of its multiple functions, while little work has been done on its effects on sea cucumbers, in spite of the occurrence of serious diseases. In this study, juvenile sea cucumbers (4.68 +/- 0.04g) were fed diets supplemented with taurine at 0% (control), 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 1, and 2% for 8wk. At the end of an 8-wk feeding trial, growth performance of sea cucumbers was not significantly affected by dietary taurine (P>0.05). However, dietary taurine significantly elevated intestinal lipase activities of sea cucumbers (P<0.05). Intestinal amylase activity and trypsin activity in sea cucumbers did not show significant changes after animals were fed diets supplemented with taurine (P>0.05). Dietary taurine at all five dosages significantly increased total antioxidant capacity in sea cucumbers, while superoxide dismutase activity in groups with dietary taurine at 0.25 and 0.5% was significantly higher than that of the control group (P<0.05). Therefore, it appears that taurine could be used as a potential feed additive to confer better health of farmed sea cucumbers.