MacroGard: a potent immunomodulator in modern shrimp production  

ZurongWang PhD
Marketing and Technical Director (Asia-Pacific Region)
Biorigin,Singapore
zurong.wang@biorigin.net

Modern shrimp production is facing a lot of challenges, such as pathogenic bacteria, virus, external parasite, ammonia, and other stressors. As shrimp are not able to respond to vaccination, enhancement of disease resistance has been attempted through stimulation of the immunological system.

Started in 1980s, MacroGard was a pioneer in researches ofβ-glucan in aquaculture. There are more than 100 published SCI articles on MacroGard. MacroGard, a purified branched β-1,3-1,6-glucans, has been shown a remarkable ability to enhance the non-specific disease in Salmon and Shrimp. Raa (1990) showed much more significant reduction of mortality to vibrio salmonicida compared to other β-glucan. Huang and Song (1999) showed that improved immunity to white spot syndrome associated virus (WSSV) due to MacroGard utilization could be maternal transmitted. Neo et al. (2015) reported that MacroGard improved survival rate from 25% to 45% of Litopenaeus vannamei challenging with the infectious myonecrosis virus (IMNV). Four commercial aquafarm trials (Basavaraja, 2013) showed that 1kg/ton of MacroGard in Shrimp feed significantly improved shrimp yield.  

Overall, MacroGard is a very potent immunomodulatory to shrimp production with more than 40 years of experiments and field application.