Abstract
Dietary alteration is one of the most universally effective aging interventions, making its standardization a fundamental need for model organisms in aging. In this dietetic study we address the current lack of standardized formulated diet for turquoise killifish Nothobranchius furzeri – a promising model organism. We first demonstrated that N. furzeri can be fully weaned at the onset of puberty onto a commercially available pelleted diet as the sole nutrition when kept in social tanks. We then compared nine somatic and six reproductive parameters between fish fed a typical laboratory diet - frozen chironomid larvae (bloodworms) and fish weaned from bloodworms to BioMar pellets. Both dietary groups had comparable somatic and reproductive performance. There was no difference between diet groups in adult body size, specific growth rate, condition or extent of hepatocellular vacuolation. Fish fed a pelleted diet had higher juvenile body mass and more visceral fat. Pellet-fed males had lower liver mass and possessed a lipid type of hepatocellular vacuolation instead of the prevailing glycogen-like vacuolation in the bloodworm-fed group. No considerable effect was found on reproductive parameters. The negligible differences between dietary groups and good acceptance of pellets indicate their suitability as a useful starting point for the development of standardized diet for Nothobranchius furzeri.
Highlights
A standardized diet is an important prerequisite in studies of the mechanisms underlying the biological phenomenon of aging[1]
The impact of diet on life history outcomes presents an excellent measure for testing the effect of a pelleted diet on N. furzeri compared to the commonly used frozen bloodworms (Chironomus larvae)[2]
All fish selected for the pellet diet treatment were successfully weaned from Artemia nauplii and bloodworms to pellets between the age of 12 and 21 dph, with most fish weaned by 17 dph
Summary
A standardized diet is an important prerequisite in studies of the mechanisms underlying the biological phenomenon of aging[1]. Feeding laboratory organisms live food and food of wild origin has numerous drawbacks such as the risk of disease introduction[4], chemical contamination of food affecting physiology[5], seasonal availability or instability of nutritional content[6] and high waste production[4] All these problems can be avoided by a standardized pelleted diet. Nothobranchius furzeri is an important vertebrate model in biomedical and evolutionary studies on aging[11,24,25] It has an unprecedented fast life history adapted to shallow ephemeral savanna pools in south-east Africa[11] but it can be bred in captivity[2,3]. This is because Nothobranchius spp. strongly prefer natural food and usually avoid the common, commercial dry or gelatin-like fish foods accepted by many other fish models
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