antimicrobial peptides: a promising future alternative to antibiotics in aquaculture

In aquaculture, antibiotic resistance has been reported in pathogenic bacteria of fish. the presence of multiple antibiotic-resistance bacteria in aquaculture food products has become a serious human health threat because there is a potential that genes responsible for drug resistance may be transferred to bacteria in humans. antimicrobial peptides (amps) are a group of oligopeptides with five to over 100 amino acids. they are pivotal humoral components of innate immunity and have been extensively studied in fish and exhibit broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity in vitro and in vivo. the study aimed to review the data for amp application in aquaculture. amps have several benefits, such as their low synthesis cost, easy storage for a long time in relatively large quantities and rapidly available after an infection. functional nutrition involves not only providing an appropriate amount of nutrients for critical body functions, but also considering its influence on host defense and disease resistance. this knowledge can establish amp-dietary strategies to reduce the demand for antibiotics while still increasing disease resistance in animal nutrition. the administration of amp-supplemented diets are used to strengthen fish health and improve their resistance to invading pathogens has yielded promising results in recent years. lactoferrin and cecropin were the most studied amp as feed additives. therefore, the main goal of using amp in aquaculture nutrition is that amp-enriched feed have effects on body function and health, including growth performance (feed conversion ratio) and specific growth rate, enzyme activity (superoxide dismutase activity lysozyme activity), disease resistance (cumulative survival rate) after pathogen infection, the expression of immune-related genes and the abundance of gut microbiota in aquatic animals. realistic feeding plan in terms of the body weight of the individuals, the amp dose, and the feeding duration can be assessed when amp-added feed is to be applied to aquaculture.