Effects of fishmeal replacement with insect meal on intestinal morphometry in zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) has emerged as an important vertebrate model for studying intes2nal morphology, organiza2on and physiology in both embryos and adults. Despite zebrafish lack of a morphologically and func2onally developed stomach, crypts, submucosal glands and enteroendocrine cells, the general intes2ne structure resembles that of the mammalian diges2ve tract and dis2nct intes2nal func2ons analogous to mammalians have been documented (Wang et al., 2010). Insect meal (IM) represent an alterna2ve animal origin protein source to fishmeal (FM) and it may allow to decrease the “carbon footprint” of aquaculture fish produc2on. To this regard, we inves2gated the effects of the zebrafish diet inclusion of IM to replace FM. To this purpose, zebrafish gut mucosa traits were studied.