LAUSR

Abstract In an eight-week feeding trial, encapsulated sodium butyrate (ESB), gamma-aminobutyric acid (GAB), selenium-yeast (SeY), yeast extract nucleotides (YEN), yucca meal (YUM), song-gang stone (SGS) and protease (PRT) were evaluated as functional feed additives in a low fishmeal (FM) diet for olive flounder Paralichthys olivaceus. Eight experimental diets were fed to 5.26 ± 0.17 g (mean ± SD) juvenile olive flounder in triplicates. A low-FM basal diet without feed additive was considered as control (CON); seven other diets were prepared by adding 4 g ESB, 158 mg GAB, 2 g SeY, 4 g YEN, 1.5 g YUM, 4 g SGS, and 175 mg PRT per kg of basal diet. Weight gain, specific growth rate, feed efficiency, and protein efficiency ratio of fish fed diets YEN, GAB, and SGS were significantly higher than those of fish fed CON diet (P   .05). Heat shock protein 70 gene expression of fish fed YEN and SeY was significantly higher than those of fish fed the CON diet. Intestinal villi length of fish fed YEN, GAB, SGS, and ESB was significantly higher than those of fish fed CON. Also, intestinal trypsin activity of fish fed YEN, GAB, SGS, ESB, and PRT was significantly higher than those of fish fed CON diet (P