Could probiotics be the panacea alternative to the use of antimicrobials in livestock diets?

Abstract

Probiotics are most frequently derived from the natural microbiota of healthy animals. These bacteria and their metabolic products are viewed as nutritional tools for promoting animal health and productivity, disease prevention and therapy, and food safety in an era defined by increasingly widespread antimicrobial resistance in bacterial pathogens. In contemporary livestock production, antimicrobial usage is indispensable for animal welfare, and employed to enhance growth and feed efficiency. Given the importance of antimicrobials in both human and veterinary medicine, their effective replacement with direct-fed microbials or probiotics could help reduce antimicrobial use, perhaps restoring or extending the usefulness of these precious drugs against serious infections. Thus, probiotic research in livestock is rapidly evolving, aspiring to produce local and systemic health benefits on par with antimicrobials. Although many studies have clearly demonstrated the potential of probiotics to positively affect animal health and inhibit pathogens, experimental evidence suggests that probiotics’ successes are modest, conditional, strain-dependent, and transient. Here, we explore current understanding, trends, and emerging applications of probiotic research and usage in major livestock species, and highlight successes in animal health and performance.

Microflora in the Reproductive Tract of Cattle: A Review

“…They can regulate the balance of gut microbes, promote the growth and development of animals, and also improve the host's resistance to diseases [142] and thus improve the host's health. Due to their competitive exclusion capacity and immunomodulatory function, probiotics are an ideal replacement for antimicrobial agents in animal nutrition [143]. Therefore, the use of probiotics is one of the options proposed by the scientific community as an alternative to antibiotics [144,145].…”

Probiotics and gut health: linking gut homeostasis and poultry productivity

“…An undeniable feature of probiotic use is the broad spectrum of applications that have resulted in positive animal performance outcomes. Increases in egg and milk production, gut health and disease reduction, leg health and lameness reduction, reproductive health, meat quality and metabolic homeostasis, have all been demonstrated experimentally following feed supplementation with probiotics (Mountzouris et al 2010;Wideman et al 2012;Shini et al 2013Shini et al , 2020bZheng et al 2014Zheng et al , 2016Latorre et al 2015;Bajagai et al 2016;Angelakis 2017;Gadde et al 2017;Cameron and McAllister 2019;Park et al 2020;Wang et al 2020;Zommiti et al 2020). Together, this is a very strong endorsement for the role of probiotics in promoting gut health, and animal health and productivity.…”

“…For poultry, a 'healthy gut' means the absence of abnormal or damaged structures and functions, so that the bird is protected from pathogens and is able to digest feed and absorb nutrients efficiently to achieve optimum performance. There is increasing evidence that probiotics can make an important contribution to keeping a gut healthy by the maintenance of gut homeostasis (Bajagai et al 2016;Cameron and McAllister 2019;Zommiti et al 2020). Optimal gut health is crucial not only for the health, performance and welfare of production animals, but it also contributes to the environment because it improves feed efficiency, reduces use of AGPs, and sustains food safety and human health.…”

Timely Control of Gastrointestinal Eubiosis: A Strategic Pillar of Pig Health

“…Apart from nutrients, a frequent strategy for restoring and supporting microbial eubiosis in the post-weaning phase is to supplement the diets with additives having the target of attenuating the gap between the pre-and post-weaning microbiota and enhancing the colonization of beneficial bacteria in the GIT ecosystem. In this context, probiotics have been widely studied and the main results have been summarized in targeted reviews [121][122][123]. Since the topic is extensive, in this review, the most recent studies regarding the probiotics which have reported a positive and promising effect on the modulation of the microbiota have been summarized (Table 1).…”