Mehrdad Farhangi

Growth behavior and production of short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) of two probiotics, Pediococcus acidilactici and Lactococcus lactis, each at 107 cfu/g (P1, L1) and 1010 cfu/g (P2, L2) at different concentrations of fructooligosaccharide (FOS) [0.5% (F1), 1% (F2), and 2% (F3)] were assessed in vitro. The time to reach the maximum growth of the probiotics in all 12 treatments was between 8 to 10 h, with the highest and the lowest growth rates obtained in F1L1P1 (0.34 ± 0.02 OD) and F3L1P1 (0.31 ± 0.05 OD) treatments, respectively. The shortest and the longest generation times were seen in F1L1P1 (112 ± 1.5 min) and F2L1P1 (231 ± 0.5 min) treatments, respectively. The highest and the lowest levels of SCFA production were found in F1L1P1 (17.94 ± 0.74 mg/L) and F3L1P1 (12.98 ± 0.85 mg/L) treatments, respectively. The three synbiotics with the highest SCFA production were then fed to Caspian roach (Rutilus frisii kutum) fry weighing 0.75 ± 0.02 g at 28 °C for 60 days, to assess growth performance and enzymatic activity. The best growth performance in terms of weight gain (WG), protein efficiency ratio (PER), net protein utilization (NPU), and food conversion ratio (FCR) were seen with F1L1P1. In addition, the highest activity levels of the digestive enzymes chymotrypsin, lipase, and amylase were obtained with F1P1L1. The correlation of these in vitro and in vivo data demonstrated that oral application of these two probiotics each at 107 cfu/g feed plus 0.5% FOS can improve growth and gut enzyme activity of Caspian roach fry.