Author(s)

Rodrigo Sanchez^1,2, Pamela Olivares¹, Erico Carmona³, Allisson Astuya⁴, Hector Herrera², Jorge Parodi^1*

¹Laboratorio Fisiología de la Reproducción, Escuela de Medicina Veterinaria, Núcleo de Investigación en Producción Alimentaria, Facultad de Recursos Naturales, Universidad Católica de Temuco, Temuco, Chile.
²Empresa Vitapro Chile, Castro, Región de Los Lagos, Chile.
³Grupo de Genotoxicología, Escuela de Medicina Veterinaria, Núcleo de Estudios Ambientales, Facultad de Recursos Naturales, Universidad Católica de Temuco, Temuco, Chile.
⁴Laboratory of Cell Culture and Marine Genomics, Marine Biotechnology Unit, Faculty of Natural and Oceanographic Sciences, University of Concepcion and Sur-Austral COPAS Program, University of Concepcion, Concepción, Chile.

In nutrition for productive species, additives play an important role in boosting physiological processes. Only in recent years studies include models of the effects on fish cells of these additives. We observed effects of silymarin, a compound highly utilized in aquaculture. The cell line SHK-1 was used derived from the upper liver of the Atlantic salmon as a biological model. Samples were exposed to silymarin in incrementing time and concentrations, to evaluate by MTT and number of cells, the effects on cell viability. Also, oxidative stress models were used to find the protector effects of silymarin against these agents. Our data indicate that a dose of 100 ppm of silymarin is sufficient to stimulate cellular proliferation. Cultures were exposed to high glucose (15 mM) or H₂O₂ (0.1 mM) in presence of or absence of silymarin at 100 ppm. We observed that the toxic effects of both compounds were blocked by the presence of silymarin. Our results indicate that it is important to evaluate additive effects at a cellular level. Also, silymarin does have proliferative effects, and protect against cellular injury in our models. Our study helps to generate more rational applications of additives in the industry and presents new challenges in order to better manipulate the model in the laboratory, allowing us to obtain new evidence regarding the microalgae’s biology through in vitro studies.

Fish, Nutrition, Silymarin, Cell Cultures

Sanchez, R. , Olivares, P. , Carmona, E. , Astuya, A. , Herrera, H. and Parodi, J. (2016) Fish Nutrition Additives in SHK-1 Cells: Protective Effects of Silymarin. Advances in Bioscience and Biotechnology, 7, 55-62. doi: 10.4236/abb.2016.72007.