Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. boulardii preserves the integrity of intestinal mucosa in gilthead seabream, Sparus aurata subjected to a bacterial challenge with Vibrio anguillarum

The present study evaluates the potential protective effect of the yeast towards an enteritis sustained by Vibrio anguillarum and experimentally induced in specimens of Sparus aurata. The experimental design can be divided into two phases. First, fish divided into 3 groups. A control group (G1) fed a diet without yeast and two experimental groups fed diets with different doses of S. boulardii: 100 mg/kg (G2 group) and 300 mg/kg (G3 group). Feeding lasted 21 days, after which, fish were challenged with a sublethal dose of V. anguillarum O1 strain per via intraperitoneal. After 7 days from the inoculum of the bacterium, fish were sacrificed and the intestines taken for histological analyses. We report a histological description of the intestines of the groups G1, G2 and G3 underlining the protective effect of the yeast on the integrity of intestinal mucosa