Abstract:An 8-week feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the effects of different dietary wheat starch and lipid levels on growth performance, feed utilization and hepatic glycolysis and gluconeogenic key enzyme activities of large yellow croaker. Six isonitrogenous diets were formulated to contain three wheat starch levels (5%, 10% and 30%) and two lipid levels (5% and 10%), respectively. Each diet was randomly assigned to feed three replicate groups of juvenile large yellow croakers with the initial weight of 6.75±0.12 g and fed twice daily to apparent satiation. The results indicated that dietary wheat starch and lipid levels didn't have significant influence on weight gain (WG), specific growth rate (SGR), feed efficiency (FE), survival rate (SR), hepatosomatic index (HSI) and condition factor (CF), however, viscerosomatic index (VSI) were significantly influenced by the dietary wheat starch and lipid levels. When the dietary lipid level was the same, fish fed the diet containing 30% wheat starch level had higher WG and SGR than those fed the diet containing 10% wheat starch. Glycogen content in muscle was significantly affected by dietary wheat starch and lipid levels, but hepatic glycogen content wasn't significantly influenced by dietary different wheat starch and lipid levels. When dietary lipid level was 5%, fish fed the diet containing 30% wheat starch level had significantly higher hepatic glycogen content than those fed the 10% and 20% wheat starch diets; while, fish fed the diet containing 10% wheat starch had higher glycogen content in muscle than those fed the diets containing 20% and 30% wheat starch levels. When the dietary lipid level was 10%, fish fed 10% wheat starch level had significantly higher hepatic glycogen content than those fed 20% and 30% wheat starch diets; fish fed 30% wheat starch level had significantly higher glycogen content in muscle than those fed 10% and 20% wheat starch diets. Glutamic-pyruvic transaminase (ALT), glutamic-oxalacetic transaminase (AST), total cholesterol (TC) and glucose (GLU) were not significantly influenced by dietary wheat starch and lipid levels. However, total protein (TP) and triglyceride (TG) were significantly influenced by different dietary wheat starch and lipid levels. Lipase activity was significantly influenced by dietary wheat starch and lipid levels, when the dietary lipid level was the same, the lipase activity increased significantly with the increase of wheat starch level; fish fed the diet containing 10% lipid level had higher lipase activity than fish fed the 5% lipid level diet. The interaction of dietary wheat starch and lipid levels had significant effects on pyruvate kinase (PK), while there were no significant effects on activities of glucokinase (GK), phosphofructokinase (PFK), phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK), fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase (FBPase) and glucose-6-phosphatase (G6Pase). The results showed that when the dietary lipid level was 5%, large yellow croaker had the ability to maintain blood glucose content by adjusting the hepatic glycolysis key enzymes activities with increase of wheat starch supplemental level.