Could a diet enriched with n-3 highly unsaturated fatty acids be considered a promising way to enhance the immune defences and the resistance of Penaeid prawns to environmental stress?

The prawn Penaeus stylirostris (Stimpson), when fed for 28 days with n-3 hi ghly unsaturated fatty acid (HUFA)-enriched feed pellets, demonstrated an e nhanced resistance to variations in environmental parameters (a decrease in temperature and salinity over a 4-day period from 28 degreesC to 17 degree sC and from 35 parts per thousand to 10 parts per thousand respectively) an d an improvement in their immune defence potential, i.e. increased agglutin ation titre of plasma and increased respiratory burst of haemocytes.