Effect of Lactobacillus plantarum on survival rate, biochemical and immunity parameters of Artemia hemolymph

Because of the fact that improving hosts immunity is one of the most important applications of probiotic, the effect of probiotic Lactobacillus plantarum on survival rate, biochemical and immunity parameters of Artemia were investigated in this study. For this purpose, Artemia urmiana cysts were desiccated and hatched according to the standard methods. This experiment was carried out in three treatments with three replications for each treatment. Different treatments contained various levels of probiotic Lactobacillus plantarum including 0 (C), 103 CFUml-1 (P3) and 106 CFUml-1 (P6). The duration of the test period was 10 days. The results showed that the percentage of hatch, survival rate, biochemical indices and the immune parameters of Artemia were improved. The highest survival rates were observed for the treatments containing probiotic with the level of 90±3.33% in P3 and 93.50±1.70% in P6 which were significantly different as compared to that of the control group (P˂0.05). Biochemical parameters such as the levels of total protein, albumin and lysozyme were increased, whereas the level of cortisol in Artemia was decreased. In addition, the highest levels of immune parameters of Artemia such as the immunoglobulin and phenol oxidase activity were observed in the P6 treatment with the amounts of 95.60±3.50and 167.76±16.16 percent, respectively. Other indicators such as the alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase were lower in the treatments containing probiotic as compared to those of the control group indicating a positive effect of this probiotic on these parameters.