Growth performance and TOR pathway gene expression of juvenile blunt snout bream, Megalobrama amblycephala, fed with diets replacing fish meal with cottonseed meal

A 16-week feeding trial was conducted to assess the effects of replacing fish meal (FM) with cottonseed meal (CM) on the growth performance, feed utilization, plasma biochemical composition and target of rapamycin (TOR) pathway gene expression of juvenile blunt snout bream (Megalobrama amblycephala). Five isonitrogenous (36% crude protein) and isoenergetic (16MJkg(-1)) diets with graded replacing levels of CM (replacing 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% FM with CM) and similar lysine and methionine concentrations were fed to triplicate groups of fish. Results revealed that specific growth rate (SGR), feed intake and protein efficiency ratio (PER) of group fed with diets replacing FM with CM up to 50% were significantly higher than others (P<0.05). However, final body weight and feed conversion ratio (FCR) remained similar up to 25% and thereafter significantly decreased and increased, respectively, as the replacement level increased (P<0.05). Replacement levels significantly decreased hepatosomatic index and viscerosomatic index (P<0.05), but did not significantly affect condition factor and whole body compositions. Free gossypol mainly accumulated in liver and significantly increased in diets CM75 and CM100 than CM0 (P<0.05). Replacement significantly influenced plasma urea contents (P<0.05). Meanwhile, increasing replacement of FM with CM in diets increased insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-1) gene expression in liver of blunt snout bream. Target of rapamycin (TOR) gene expression in diet CM100 was significantly lower than that in diets CM0 and CM75, while the eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E-binding protein 2 (4E-BP2) gene expression was not affected by the replacement level of CM in diets. Therefore, based on final body weight and FCR, it suggested that up to 25% of FM (150gkg(-1) in basal diet) could be replaced by CM in diets, which was 112.5gkg(-1) FM and 192.9gkg(-1) CM, for juvenile blunt snout bream.