Dietary Supplementation of Astragalus membranaceus Extract Affects Growth Performance, Antioxidant Capacity, Immune Response, and Energy Metabolism of Largemouth Bass (Micropterus salmoides)

Table 6

Hepatic and intestinal histological parameters of M. salmoides fed diets supplemented with different levels of AME.

	Con	AME0.1	AME0.2	AME0.3	AME0.4	AME0.5	AME0.6	Regression
								Linear	Quadratic
Hepatic cell diameter (μm)	16.45 ± 0.45^c	16.67 ± 0.94^bc	16.63 ± 0.77^bc	16.28 ± 0.64^c	20.32 ± 1.09^a	19.19 ± 0.70^abc	20.16 ± 0.77^ab	0.001	0.001
Midgut villi height (μm)	517.01 ± 11.72^b	566.03 ± 22.63^ab	640.78 ± 22.72^a	620.81 ± 15.12^a	591.15 ± 11.70^ab	609.22 ± 30.45^ab	612.20 ± 24.65^ab	0.031	0.007
Midgut villi width (μm)	89.95 ± 1.27	93.46 ± 3.04	93.08 ± 0.43	92.37 ± 2.12	91.37 ± 1.31	92.46 ± 4.61	89.40 ± 3.21	0.687	0.484
lamina propria width (μm)	49.45 ± 0.94^ab	49.67 ± 1.37^ab	47.00 ± 2.01^ab	44.94 ± 1.24^b	49.18 ± 0.78^ab	49.77 ± 1.98^ab	53.02 ± 2.71^a	0.209	0.012
Muscular layer thickness (μm)	123.76 ± 13.87	122.71 ± 6.78	126.60 ± 8.95	127.50 ± 3.24	140.39 ± 3.74	133.71 ± 8.57	143.00 ± 5.33	0.024	0.078
Sub-mucosal layer thickness (μm)	24.53 ± 0.89^b	24.13 ± 0.99^b	23.10 ± 0.80^b	24.79 ± 0.89^ab	24.30 ± 1.39^b	23.89 ± 1.11^b	29.82 ± 1.54^a	0.058	0.009

Values are means ± SEM of three replications. Means in the same row with different superscripts are significantly different ().