Rearing effect of biofloc on antioxidant and antimicrobial transcriptional response in Litopenaeus stylirostris shrimp facing an experimental sub-lethal hydrogen peroxide stress

Abstract This study compares the antioxidant and antimicrobial transcriptional expression of blue shrimps reared according to two different systems, BioFloc Technology (BFT) and Clear sea Water (CW) and their differential responses when facing an experimental sublethal hydrogen peroxide stress. After 30 days of rearing, juvenile shrimps were exposed to H 2 O 2 stress at a concentration of 30 ppm during 6 h. The oxidative stress caused by H 2 O 2 was examined in the digestive glands of the shrimp, in which antioxidant enzyme (AOE) and antimicrobial peptide (AMP) gene expression were analysed by quantitative real-time PCR. Results showed that rearing conditions did not affect the expression of genes encoding AOEs or AMPs. However, H 2 O 2 stress induced a differential response in expression between shrimps from the two rearing treatments (BFT and CW). Comparative analysis of the expression profiles indicates that catalase transcripts were significantly upregulated by H 2 O 2 stress for BFT shrimps while no change was observed for CW shrimps. In contrast, H 2 O 2 caused down-regulation of superoxide dismutase and glutathione transferase transcripts and of the three AMP transcripts studied (penaeidin 2 and 3, and crustin) for CW shrimps, while no effect was observed on BFT shrimp transcript levels. These results suggested that BFT shrimps maintained antioxidant and AMP responses after stress and therefore can effectively protect their cells against oxidative stress, while CW shrimp immune competence seems to decrease after stress.