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Review
. 2023 Sep 15:10:1188659.
doi: 10.3389/fvets.2023.1188659. eCollection 2023.

The roles of soybean lecithin in aquafeed: a crucial need and update

Wendy Wee  1 , Guillermo Téllez-Isaías  2 , Zulhisyam Abdul Kari  3   4 , Romalee Cheadoloh  5 , Muhammad Anamul Kabir  6 , Khairiyah Mat  3   4 , Suniza Anis Mohamad Sukri  3   4 , Mohammad Mijanur Rahman  3   4 , Nor Dini Rusli  3   4 , Lee Seong Wei  3   4
Affiliations
Review

The roles of soybean lecithin in aquafeed: a crucial need and update

Wendy Wee et al. Front Vet Sci. .

Abstract

Soybean lecithin is extensively used as the dietary supplementation of phospholipids in animal production. Soybean lecithin plays significant roles in aquafeed as growth promoter, feed enhancer, immunity modulator and antioxidant activity stimulator for aquaculture species. Besides, soybean lecithin is also reported to help aquaculture species being resilient to physical and chemical stressors. In this review, common sources, chemical structure and mode of action of lecithin, with highlight on soybean lecithin application in aquaculture over four-decadal studies published between 1983 and 2023, were evaluated and summarized. By far, soybean lecithin is best-known for its beneficial effects, availability yet cost-effective for aquafeed formulation. Findings from this review also demonstrate that although nutritional profile of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids and phosphatidylcholine from egg yolk and marine sources are superior to those from plant sources such as soybean, it is rather costly for sustainable application in aquafeed formulation. Moreover, commercially available products that incorporate soybean lecithin with other feed additives are promising to boost aquaculture production. Overall, effects of soybean lecithin supplementation are well-recognized on larval and juvenile of aquaculture species which having limited ability to biosynthesis phospholipids de novo, and correspondingly attribute to phospholipid, a primary component of soybean lecithin, that is essential for rapid growth during early stages development. In addition, soybean lecithin supplementation plays a distinguish role in stimulating maturation of gonadal development in the adults, especially for crustaceans.

Keywords: antioxidant; feed utilization; growth performance; immunity; lecithin; stressor; sustainable aquaculture.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The reviewer RC declared a shared affiliation with the author GT-I to the handling editor at the time of review.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Soybean lecithin (C42H80NO8P) in (A) 2D chemical structure and (B) 3D model (MolView).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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