Fermentation in Animal Health

In the last decades, many scientists and research technicians are committed to exploring opportunities to improve animal health, well-being, and performance. As knowledge of immune function, cell culture, gene expression, and virology theory continues to grow, chemical agents and pharmaceutical drugs produced through fermentation technology are being developed to treat animal diseases.

Fermentation for Feed Additives

The main purpose of food additives in animal diets is to improve the growth efficiency, prevent disease and improve the feed utilization in poultry. It should be ensured that the feed additive has no harmful effects on human and animal health as well as the environment. The development of healthy feed additives is mainly achieved through chemical and mechanical treatments, addition of enzymes and absorbents, plant breeding or fermentation to remove anti-nutritional factors and toxins from feed additives. In the last two decades, fermentation technology has gained good achievements in improving feed quality, feed utilization efficiency and promoting animal health. Fermentation technologies such as microbial-based fermentation and precision fermentation can improve feed digestibility by changing the physicochemical properties of the feed substrate, thus ensuring animal health and high quality production.

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of reverse-engineering approaches to drug discovery. (Fernandes, H.; et al. 2021)

Fermentation for Anticoccidial Agents

Coccidiosis has become one of the most important parasitic diseases of poultry worldwide. Currently, widely used anticoccidial agents can be divided into synthetic drugs (chemicals) and polyether ionophore antibiotics (fermentation products of Streptomyces and other fungi species). It has been demonstrated that many Streptomyces and other fungal species can be used for the fermention of ionophores, and these ionophores have been shown to have broad-spectrum activity against most coccidial pathogens and do not produce drug resistance.

Fermentation for Anthelmintic Agents

Worms can infect livestock and domestic pets, which can make them weak and bad looking. Parasitic infections in lactating animals often reduce milk production. The development of anthelmintic agents is an effective approach for long-lasting, broad-spectrum anthelmintic treatment. Effective anthelmintic agents can be produced through a fermentation process using Gram-positive bacteriums. Many aspects of fermentation technology have been improved to increase the yield and potency of anthelmintic reagents, including the use of mutagens, the introduction of genetic engineering techniques, and the optimization of fermentation conditions.

Fermentation for Antiparasitic Agents

Recently, parasites have posed a serious threat to animal production, health and welfare. Parasitic infections can have serious effects on the immune system, which will lead to severe economic losses and animal deaths. The control of parasitic diseases occurring in animals has been achieved mainly through the employment of anti-parasitic drugs and agents. Currently, standard fermentation and isolation techniques have been used to separate antiparasitic compounds that show desirable biological activity from the fermentation processes of many bacteria and other microorganisms.

Figure 2. Pigs' Feed Fermentation Model with Antimicrobial Lactic Acid Bacteria Strains. (Vadopalas, L.; et al. 2020)

Fermentation for Antiprotozoal Agents

Protozoan diseases, one of the major threats to animal health worldwide, have caused significant economic losses to livestock and poultry worldwide. Many biologically active metabolites have been developed as antiprotozoal agents, which are mainly synthesized by microbial fermentation processes.

Fermentation for Veterinary Vaccines

Efficient and safe veterinary vaccines play an important role in the health management of animals. In order to obtain safer and more immune vaccines and to reduce the environmental impact of veterinary drug residues, modern fermentation technologies are being explored to develop and manufacture more effective veterinary vaccines such as DNA vaccines and virus-like particles (VLPs) vaccines. Streptococcal, Pasteurella, Mycoplasma and Bacillus media are commonly used culture mediums in the fermentation of veterinary vaccines.

Our Services

BOC Sciences provides fermentation CDMO service for Animal Health Industry. With our complete quality management system and strong fermentation capabilities, we are able to help customers facilitate their fermentation related projects and support them from laboratory to commercialization.

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References

Fernandes, H.; et al. Solid-state fermented brewer's spent grain enzymatic extract increases in vitro and in vivo feed digestibility in European seabass. Scientific Reports. 2021. 11: 22946.
Vadopalas, L.; et al. Pigs' Feed Fermentation Model with Antimicrobial Lactic Acid Bacteria Strains Combination by Changing Extruded Soya to Biomodified Local Feed Stock. Animals. 2020. 10(5): 783.