Essential Oils as Stress-Reducing Agents for Fish Aquaculture: A Review

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2019-06Department
BiologíaSource
Frontiers in Physiology - 2019, 10:785.Abstract
In fish, stressful events initiate a hormone cascade along the hypothalamus-pituitaryinterrenal
and hypothalamus-sympathetic-chromaffin (HSC) axis to evoke several
physiological reactions in order to orchestrate and maintain homeostasis. Several biotic
and abiotic factors, as well as aquaculture procedures (handling, transport, or stocking
density), activated stress system inducing negative effects on different physiological
processes in fish (growth, reproduction, and immunity). In order to reduce these
consequences, the use of essential oils (EOs) derived from plants has been the focus
of aquaculture studies due to their diverse properties (e.g., anesthetic, antioxidant,
and antimicrobial), which have been shown to reduce biochemical and endocrine
alterations and, consequently, to improve the welfare status. Recently, several studies
have shown that biogenic compounds isolated from different EOs present excellent
biological activities, as well as the nanoencapsulated form of these EOs may potentiate
their effects. Overall, EOs presented less side effects than synthetic compounds, but
their stress-reducing efficacy is related to their chemical composition, concentration or
chemotype used. In addition, their species-specific actions must be clearly established
since they can act as stressors by themselves if their concentrations and chemotypes
used are not suitable. For this reason, it is necessary to assess the effect of these natural
compound mixtures in different fish species, from marine to freshwater, in order to find
the ideal concentration range and the way for their administration to obtain the desired
biological activity, without any undesired side effects. In this review, the main findings
regarding the use of different EOs as stress reducers will be presented to highlight the
most important issues related to their use to improve fish welfare in aquaculture.
Subjects
aquaculture; natural compounds; fish stress; fish health; fish immundogyCollections
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