In Vitro Assessment of Berberine against <i>Ichthyophthirius multifiliis</i> in Goldfish
Ke Huang,
Guangran Hu,
Runqiu Wang,
Qingwen Zeng,
Wenxiang Li,
Hong Zou,
Shangong Wu,
Guitang Wang,
Ming Li
Affiliations
Ke Huang
State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, and Key Laboratory of Aquaculture Disease Control, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
Guangran Hu
State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, and Key Laboratory of Aquaculture Disease Control, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
Runqiu Wang
Hubei Key Laboratory of Three Gorges Project for Conservation of Fishes, Chinese Sturgeon Research Institute, China Three Gorges Corporation, Yichang 443100, China
Qingwen Zeng
State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, and Key Laboratory of Aquaculture Disease Control, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
Wenxiang Li
State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, and Key Laboratory of Aquaculture Disease Control, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
Hong Zou
State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, and Key Laboratory of Aquaculture Disease Control, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
Shangong Wu
State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, and Key Laboratory of Aquaculture Disease Control, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
Guitang Wang
State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, and Key Laboratory of Aquaculture Disease Control, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
Ming Li
State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, and Key Laboratory of Aquaculture Disease Control, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
Ichthyophthirius multifiliis is a pathogenic ciliate parasite, which infects almost all freshwater teleost fish and leads to significant economic losses. The present study aimed to evaluate the acute toxicity of berberine to the free-living stages of I. multifiliis, that is, theronts and tomonts. Our results indicated that 99.30% of I. multifiliis theronts were killed by a concentration of 15 mg/L berberine during the 4 h exposure time, while berberine had no effect on protomonts. Nevertheless, berberine at a concentration of 5 mg/L could effectively reduce the release of theronts from tomonts treated for 4 h. Additionally, according to the transmission electron microscopy results, berberine at 15 mg/L could strongly change the shape of protomonts, destroy their organelles, and significantly decrease the number of ribosomes. The median lethal concentration (LC50) of berberine for goldfish at 96 h was 528.44 mg/L, which was almost 67 times the median effective concentration (EC50) of berberine for killing theronts (7.86 mg/L). The results demonstrated that berberine could be an effective and safe potential parasiticide for killing I. multifiliis.
