Sri Andayani, Mohamad Fadjar, Yenni Risjani, Muhammad Sulaiman Dadiono, Vina Nur Nadiro, Nadiah Nurandi
Bitter melon is widely recognized for its medicinal properties, including its potential health benefits in various species. The present study investigated the impact of the bitter melon fraction on liver histological changes of koi fish infected with Aeromonas salmonicida (A. salmonicida). Maceration of bitter melon fruit was carried out for 4 days, then filtered and evaporated to obtain a thick extract. Phytochemical testing included column chromatography for the separation of active compounds and UV-Vis spectrophotometry for the analysis of the absorbance spectra of the fractions. The A. salmonicida bacterial infection was performed five days prior to the fish being soaked in a bitter melon fraction, at a bacterial density of 107 cells/ml for 48 hours. A completely randomized design was employed, featuring five treatments, including no bitter melon fraction with no infection (K -), other groups infected with A. salmonicida and supplemented with 75 ppm of bitter melon (A), 95 ppm of bitter melon (B), 115 ppm of bitter melon (C), and 5 ppm chloramphenicol (antibiotic, K +). Each treatment group consisted of 15 fish (average length and weight of Koi fish were 8 cm and 12 grams) with three replications, which were immersed in their respective solutions for 48 hours. The current study adopted the maceration method with 98% ethanol for the extraction of bitter melon fruit. To determine liver histological damage in Koi fish, the authors employed the scoring method. The findings indicated slight liver damage in histology parameters with an average score of 1.2-1.4 for treatments A and B, respectively; however, treatment C and the positive control exhibited moderate damage with an average necrosis score of 2. According to the obtained data, the bitter melon fruit fraction at a concentration of 95 ppm had the highest preventive effects on the liver of the Koi fish infected with A. salmonicida. © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Department of Aquaculture, Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science, University of Brawijaya, East Java, Malang, Indonesia; Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences, Jenderal Soedirman University, Purwokerto, Indonesia; PSDKU Aquaculture University of Brawijaya, East Java, Kediri, Indonesia
