Probiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics used to control vibriosis in fish: A review

The aquaculture industry is still expanding to provide human beings with healthy and nutritious protein sources. Infectious diseases, deteriorated water quality parameters, and other environmental stressors are from the main obstacles that threaten fish farming and reduce its profitability. Vibriosis is one of the most common bacterial diseases that negatively affect shrimp, marine fishes, and some freshwater fish causing high mortalities and severe economic loss. Chemotherapeutic agents as antibiotics are commonly applied for treatment strategies; however, their numerous drawbacks to fish and the aquatic environment have limited their use. Moreover, FDA has prohibited certain antibiotics from being used for food fish to avoid their negative consequences on human consumers. Water quality control and biosecurity protocols are traditionally applied to combat vibriosis. Nowadays, immunomodulators are greatly used and described throughout the globe to enhance the fish immunity. In this concern, probiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics have become common solutions to increase the fish resistance against vibriosis. They were approved to be current alternatives to limit the usage of antibiotics in aquaculture resulting in less mortality and increased health and welfare of the aquatic organisms. Many studies speculated that probiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics could be efficiently and effectively used as food or water additives to increase immunity, thereby reducing the mortality caused by several fish pathogens such as Vibrio species. Comprehensively, this review article presents the latest knowledge on the potential roles of probiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics to boost immunity and reduce the impacts of vibriosis in several finfish species. This review article will also provide new findings and possible mechanisms of action of probiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics to control vibriosis in fish. These literature will be helpful to increase the sustainability of aquaculture and health welfare of farmed fish.