An Agricultural Perspective for Combating Antibiotic Resistance: A Literature Review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: The overuse of antibiotics has led to a surge of antibiotic resistant bacteria in recent decades. Animal agriculture has proven to be a significant contributor to this overuse. The investigation of potential alternatives to antibiotics in animal agriculture is thus warranted. Methods: We conducted a literature review exploring four alternatives for antibiotic use in an animal agricultural setting: phytochemicals, antimicrobial peptides, probiotics, and bacteriophages. Results: Four different types of antibiotic alternatives were evaluated. The first one is phytochemicals, a broad group consisting of five subtypes: alkaloids, carotenoids, polyphenols, terpenoids, and organosulfur compounds. Many of these display antibacterial properties such as interacting with the cytoplasmic membrane, immunomodulatory activities, inhibiting specific components of DNA replication, and even inactivating specific enzymes vital for the survival of bacteria. All these subtypes displayed various antibacterial properties in animal studies surrounding poultry and livestock. The second alternative is antimicrobial peptides, which have shown to be effective in treating conditions such as post-weaning stress and necrotic enteritis in various animals. The third alternative is probiotics, which have demonstrated both growth promotion and disease prevention properties. One study also concluded that probiotics provide financial benefits to farmers. The fourth antibiotic alternative is bacteriophages, a class of viruses that infect bacteria. Phages have shown disease prevention and growth promotion properties; they also can prevent the transmission of zoonotic diseases. Discussion: Phytochemicals, antimicrobial peptides, probiotics, and bacteriophages all demonstrate the capability of acting as antibiotic alternatives. Each of these alternatives are unique with their own advantages and disadvantages; hence, the applicability is broad. Conclusion: Four antibiotic alternatives (phytochemicals, antimicrobial peptides, probiotics, and bacteriophages) were researched for disease prevention and growth promotion properties, inherent functions of antibiotics. The applicability of such options in livestock and poultry is vast. Therefore, given more funding for research studies and policy changes, many of these options can be implemented if not already.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.009 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".