Abstract

This study measured nitric oxide (NO) concentration using Griess assay in three shell length groups of spats aged 2.5 months that had been exposed to various concentrations of a pro-inflammatory drug (lipopolysaccharide, LPS). The shell lengths of small-, medium-, and large-size groups were 1.15 mm, 4.24 mm, and 6.40 mm, respectively, suggesting that there was significant variation in the shell length even though they were fertilized simultaneously. The NO concentration increased significantly as the LPS concentration increased specifically, NO was the highest in spats of small size followed by spats of medium and large sizes. Thus, our study showed that failure to thrive (FTT) spats are more susceptible to inflammation-inducing environments. We conclude that NO measurement using Griess assay is useful for evaluating the health of spats, and FTT spats are likely to have a low resistance to inflammatory conditions and poor health.