Seaweeds: A potent source of antimicrobial drugs for aquaculture industry

Abstract

The purpose of this review is to elucidate the antimicrobial effect of seaweed extracts as a dietary supplement in aquatic animals. Aquaculture, a future of food producing sector, plays an important role in global food security, elimination of mal nutrition, and provides livelihood and employment over 59 million people around the world. Though, one side global food fish production and consumption shows an increasing trend, on the other side due to the over exploitation of available marine resources and emergence of deadly bacterial and viral disease in culture practices, the sector is leading to a great adversity which can bridge a gap between fish production and consumption. Nowadays there are several chemicals and drugs have been used to treat the diseased aquatic animals. Antibiotic usage in aquaculture practices, to mitigate the pathogenic intruders, is unsustainable and its application makes the bacteria to evolve resistance and their consumption leads to food vulnerability in human and animal. Presently, the global fish production sector is moving towards the sustainable and eco-friendly solutions to mitigate the emerging deadly intruders. However, there are many sustainable alternatives in practice such as, bacteriophage therapy, vaccine, RNA interference, use of short-chain fatty acids and polyhydroxyal kanoates to inhibit the growth of bacterial intruders, use of immune stimulants, probiotics, prebiotics, symbiotics, quorum sensing inhibition, and also the use of seaweed extract in the place of antibiotics and chemicals considered as an effective and sustainable alternative in fighting against the diseases in aquatic animals. Extracts derived from seaweeds, exerts numerous benefits over the cultivable aquatic animal which includes, promotion of growth and enhancement of the immune and other physiological performances. The present review gives an insight to the use of bio-active compounds derived from seaweeds and its beneficial effects to improve the production and immune status in aquatic animals.