Abstract
Facing antibiotic resistance has provoked a continuously growing focus on phage therapy. Although the greatest emphasis has always been placed on phage treatment in humans, behind phage application lies a complex approach that can be usefully adopted by the food industry, from hatcheries and croplands to ready-to-eat products. Such diverse businesses require an efficient method for combating highly pathogenic bacteria since antibiotic resistance concerns every aspect of human life. Despite the vast abundance of phages on Earth, the aquatic environment has been considered their most natural habitat. Water favors multidirectional Brownian motion and increases the possibility of contact between phage particles and their bacterial hosts. As the global production of aquatic organisms has rapidly grown over the past decades, phage treatment of bacterial infections seems to be an obvious and promising solution in this market sector. Pathogenic bacteria, such as Aeromonas and Vibrio, have already proved to be responsible for mass mortalities in aquatic systems, resulting in economic losses. The main objective of this work is to summarize, from a scientific and industry perspective, the recent data regarding phage application in the form of targeted probiotics and therapeutic agents in aquaculture niches.
Highlights
Fisheries and the aquaculture sector are key elements in the food industry that supply food to every part of the world
Analysis of 117 samples of blue mussels, seawater, or sediment revealed the presence of V. parahaemolyticus in over 90% of the samples collected at all time-points throughout the year [36]
Infected (5.0 × 105 cfu/mL) juvenile shrimps were fed with pellets containing the phage (1.5 × 108 pfu/shrimp) or immersed in phage suspension (1.5 × 106 pfu/mL) 1 h after the bacterial challenge or prior to infection
Summary
Fisheries and the aquaculture sector are key elements in the food industry that supply food to every part of the world. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), global fish production reached 179 million tons in 2018, nearly 90% of which has been consumed by humans [1]. In the past 30 years, global aquaculture production increased by over 500% and fish consumption by 122% [1]. In the United States alone, the estimated freshwater and marine aquaculture production reached a value of USD1.45 billion in 2016, an increase of over USD60 million from 2015 [2]. China is the largest producer of seafood products in the world, followed by India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. In addition to fish species, aquaculture production consists of, among others, clams, oysters, and shrimp [2]
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