Abstract
BackgroundWorldwide, there is a need to expand the number of drugs available to treat parasitic infections in aquaculture. One of the new materials being tested is metal nanoparticles, which have unique chemical and physical characteristics owing to their extremely small size and high surface area to volume ratio. We examined the effectiveness of gold nanoparticles against the microsporidian parasite Heterosporis saurida, which causes severe economic losses in lizard fish, Saurida undosquamis aquaculture.ResultsWe synthesized gold nanoparticles by chemical reduction of tetrachloroauric acid as a metal precursor. We assessed the antimicrosporidial efficacy of the nanoparticles against H. saurida using an in vitro screening approach, which we had developed previously using the eel kidney cell line EK-1. The number of H. saurida spores produced in EK-1 cells was reduced in a proportional manner to the dosage of gold nanoparticles administered. A cell metabolic activity test (MTT) indicated that the gold nanoparticles did not appear to be toxic to the host cells.ConclusionsGold nanoparticles can act as an effective antimicrosporidial agent and hold promise to reduce disease in lizardfish aquaculture. Metal nanoparticles should be considered as an alternate choice for development of new antimicrosporidial drugs to combat disease problems in aquaculture.
Highlights
Worldwide, there is a need to expand the number of drugs available to treat parasitic infections in aquaculture
Gold nanoparticles transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed that the mean diameter of gold nanoparticles was 11.06–14.22 nm, and particles were spherical (Fig. 2)
TEM showed that the gold nanoparticles suspension was in a monodispersional state without obvious aggregations
Summary
There is a need to expand the number of drugs available to treat parasitic infections in aquaculture. We examined the effectiveness of gold nanoparticles against the microsporidian parasite Heterosporis saurida, which causes severe economic losses in lizard fish, Saurida undosquamis aquaculture. S. undosquamis is a Lessepsian migrant species distributed across the Indo-West Pacific including the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Eastern Africa, Japan and Australia [1]. S. undosquamis invaded the Levant Basin of the Mediterranean Sea, from the Indo-West Pacific through the Suez Canal [2] and is considered one of the most successful colonizers of the Eastern Mediterranean, extending as far as the Aegean Sea [3]. The Mediterranean lizardfish population has significant commercial value [4] in the eastern Mediterranean, where it is considered one of the most common species caught in the trawl fishery [5]. Fish are susceptible to many pathogens, often with severe consequences [6]
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