Abstract
BackgroundFeed composition has a large impact on the growth of animals, particularly marine fish. We have developed a quantitative dynamic model that can predict the growth and body composition of marine fish for a given feed composition over a timespan of several months. The model takes into consideration the effects of environmental factors, particularly temperature, on growth, and it incorporates detailed kinetics describing the main metabolic processes (protein, lipid, and central metabolism) known to play major roles in growth and body composition.ResultsFor validation, we compared our model's predictions with the results of several experimental studies. We showed that the model gives reliable predictions of growth, nutrient utilization (including amino acid retention), and body composition over a timespan of several months, longer than most of the previously developed predictive models.ConclusionWe demonstrate that, despite the difficulties involved, multiscale models in biology can yield reasonable and useful results. The model predictions are reliable over several timescales and in the presence of strong temperature fluctuations, which are crucial factors for modeling marine organism growth. The model provides important improvements over existing models.
Highlights
Feed composition has a large impact on the growth of animals, marine fish
Despite the difficulties involved, we demonstrate that multiscale models are able to efficiently predict many dynamic properties for a wide variety of conditions (for instance, amino acid (AA) retention and the effect of AA profiles, fatty acids (FAs), and glucose on growth and body composition)
The long timescale: Mass and body composition The model was tested against experiments with diets containing different AA profiles and fat compositions [23]
Summary
The long timescale: Mass and body composition The model was tested against experiments with diets containing different AA profiles and fat compositions [23]. Long-term prediction: Body mass (left) and body fat and protein (right) over a timespan of 121 days with strong temperature variations (left, gray dotted); two different feeding strategies are shown for the new model (black curves), the model from [19] (blue curves), and experimental results (circles). Short timescale regulation: ATP levels (left) and AcCoA levels (right) simulated using the same conditions as, presented here for days 80-83 (given by hours) for the new model (black dashed curve), the old model [19] (blue curve), and experimental results (circles [24], squares [25], diamonds [26]). Due to improved regulation in the TCA cycle, energy homeostasis (constant ATP levels) is predicted more accurately in the new model (black dashed curve) compared to the old one (blue curve)
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