Dietary ascorbic acid modulates the expression profile of stress protein genes in hepatopancreas of adult Pacific abalone Haliotis discus hannai Ino

• Ascorbic acid (AA) modulates the expression of stress protein genes in abalone.
• Dietary AA (70.3 mg kg−1) reduced the oxidative stress in abalone.
• Excessive dietary AA (829.8 and 4967.5 mg kg−1) induced oxidative stress in abalone.
• Coordinate alterations of gene expression were found in response to dietary AA.

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary ascorbic acid (AA) on transcriptional expression patterns of antioxidant proteins, heat shock proteins (HSP) and nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) in the hepatopancreas of Pacific abalone Haliotis discus hannai Ino (initial average length: 84.36 ± 0.24 mm) using real-time quantitative PCR assays. L-ascorbyl-2-molyphosphate (LAMP) was added to the basal diet to formulate four experimental diets containing 0.0, 70.3, 829.8 and 4967.5 mg AA equivalent kg−1 diets, respectively. Each diet was fed to triplicate groups of adult abalone in acrylic tanks (200 L) in a flow-through seawater system. Each tank was stocked with 15 abalone. Animals were fed once daily (17:00) to apparent satiation for 24 weeks. The results showed that the dietary AA (70.3 mg kg−1) could significantly up-regulate the expression levels of Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione-S-transferase (GST), feritin (FT) and heat shock protein 26 (HSP26) in the hepatopancreas of abalone in this treatment compared to the controls. However, the expression levels of Mn-SOD, glutathione peroxidase (GPX), thioredoxin peroxidase (TPx), selenium-binding protein (SEBP), HSP70 and HSP90 were significantly down-regulated. Compared with those in the group with 70.3 mg kg−1 dietary AA, the expression levels of CAT, GST and HSP26 were decreased in abalone fed with very high dietary AA (4967.5 mg kg−1). In addition, significant up-regulations of expression levels of Mn-SOD, GPX, TPx, SEBP, FT, HSP70, HSP90 and NF-κB were observed in abalone fed with apparently excessive dietary AA (829.8 and 4967.5 mg kg−1) as compared to those fed 70.3 mg kg−1 dietary AA. These findings showed that dietary AA influenced the expression levels of antioxidant proteins, heat shock proteins and NF-κB in the hepatopancreas of abalone at transcriptional level. Levels of dietary AA that appeared adequate (70.3 mg kg−1) reduced the oxidative stress by influencing gene expression of antioxidant proteins, but excessive dietary AA (829.8 and 4967.5 mg kg−1) induced oxidative stress in Pacific abalone H. discus hannai.