The extensive use of antibiotics in food-producing animals has contributed to an increase in drug-resistant animal pathogens that can potentially be transmitted to humans and adversely affect human health. Resistance to antibiotics, known as anti-microbial resistance, has become a global concern. Alternatives to replace dying antibiotics or the development of new strategies are therefore timely and urgently needed.
Alternative approaches are being investigated, including better management of existing antibiotics, modification of their structure to improve their activity and the search for new antibiotic molecules such as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs)/bacteriocins.
AMPs are produced by unicellular organisms (especially bacteria) and include lipopeptides, which are non-ribosomally synthesized secondary metabolites, and bacteriocins, which are synthesized by the ribosomal machinery of Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. Bacteriocins can inhibit the growth of other bacteria and fungi, parasites and viruses. They are less likely to develop resistance than conventional antibiotics. In particular, bacteriocins produced by lactic acid bacteria (LAB-bacteriocins) are stable at high temperatures and over a wide range of pH values. They are also mainly active against phylogenetically related strains of the producing strain.
However, LAB-bacteriocins with activity against phylogenetically distant strains are rare. Therefore, the discovery of new strains of lactic acid bacteria that produce new bacteriocins with activity against Gram-negative bacilli (GNB) is original for academic achievements and insights, and important for industrial and biomedical applications.
In veterinary medicine, LAB and bacteriocins have been used as antimicrobials and probiotics. In addition, several studies have demonstrated their immunomodulatory effects in animals. Therefore, bacteriocins represent an excellent alternative for use in several areas of veterinary medicine.
