review · Open Veterinary Journal
Bacterial infections in intensive aquaculture cause severe mortalities, leading to the heavy use of antibiotics and chemicals. This practice generates risks including drug resistance and chemical residues in fish and humans. Alternative biocontrol strategies offer safer pathways for managing disease. Probiotics provide eco-friendly supplementation that improves nutritional value, boosts immune responses, and inhibits harmful pathogens. Bio-encapsulated vaccines, formulated with nanoparticles, enhance the availability, bioactivity, and controlled release of protective molecules. Bioinformatic tools also assist through reverse vaccinology, aiding the design of targeted vaccines against challenging intracellular bacteria. Furthermore, bacteriophage therapy presents a targeted biological intervention. Specific bacteriophages have been isolated against various fish pathogens, and oral administration of phage cocktails offers a practical delivery method when treating large volumes of cultured fish.
Intensive fish farming is vital for food supply, but reliance on conventional antibiotics threatens human and animal health by spreading antimicrobial resistance and chemical residues. Adopting sustainable biological alternatives, such as probiotics, nano-encapsulated vaccines, and bacteriophages, protects farmed fish populations without compromising environmental safety or food standards.
These biocontrol approaches target commercial aquaculture operators and veterinary health manufacturers seeking alternatives to antibiotics. Applications include probiotic feed additives, nanoparticle-delivered vaccines, and oral phage cocktail treatments. While specific bacteriophages have been isolated and nanoparticles have successfully encapsulated disease-specific molecules, the review indicates these tools represent applied biological concepts that still require formulation into scaled, commercially deployable veterinary health products.
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The objective of this review is to control fish bacterial diseases or infections through application of some promising novel biocontrol methods, such as probiotics, bio-encapsulated vaccines, and phage therapy, to avoid the disadvantages of traditional one that potentially affects fish and human health. Bacterial infection in intensive fish farming causes mass mortalities and the treatment of that requires the intensive use of chemicals and antibiotics. Several methods have been tried to control fish diseases including the use of antibiotics, but their haphazard use is associated with potentially negative effects as drug resistance and drug residues. The use of probiotics as biocontrol agents for aquaculture is increasing with the demand for environmental beneficial, eco-friendly alternatives for sustainable aquaculture production. The benefits of such supplements include improved food value, inhibition of pathogenic microorganisms, and increased immune response. The bio-encapsulated vaccine appears to be the most attractive method for releasing of vaccines. Several bioactive molecules which are specific for some diseases have been successfully encapsulated with nanoparticles in order to enhance their availability, bioactivity, and controlled delivery. Recently, "reverse vaccine" by using bio-informatics that aids in designing vaccines against infectious pathogens that are difficult to design, especially the intracellular bacteria. Additionally, the use of bacteriophages for biological control of pathogens in cultured fish has gained much interest. Several bacteriophages have been isolated specific to various pathogenic bacteria. Oral administration of phage cocktail is the most suitable way of application in fish, especially when large number of infected fish should be manipulated. Hence, in the following paragraphs, we will discuss some promising novel biocontrol methods that target the fish pathogens like probiotics, bio-encapsulated vaccines, and phage therapy.
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DOI: 10.4314/ovj.v9i3.2
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