Marine Bacterial Viruses: The Inevitable Natural Antimicrobial Agents in the Marine Environment

Antimicrobial property has been the reason for investigation in several plants and microorganisms. The health issues and environmental hazards defined by the extensive use of chemical antimicrobials have become a buried fact due to the emergence of bio-based antimicrobial agents. Considering the impact of chemical antimicrobials on the environment, many natural antimicrobial agents have been formulated and recommended for application in food systems. Several food-borne outbreaks are associated with the intake of marine foods and are highly linked with harmful microbial pathogens. Marine bacterial pathogens have been extensively reported for several outbreaks in the last few decades. Vibriosis is the most devastating disease faced by marine organisms. The associated pathogens have also been channelized to humans through seafood consumption. There also exist some deadly bacterial pathogens in marine environments, which are responsible for huge economic losses in seafood processing sectors. It is high time to mitigate this bacterial jeopardy. The extended anthropogenic activity on the coastal lines has also increased the virulence of these bacterial pathogens by inducing multidrug resistance. Based on several reports in the pre and post-antibiotic era, phage therapy is revitalised to overcome the limitations encountered in antibiotic therapy. Marine bacteriophages are documented as abundantly available viruses in the marine environment. Their ubiquitous and inevitable nature can be utilized to engage them as natural antimicrobial agents from the marine environment and its allied sources. This chapter summarized the feasibility of employing bacterial viruses from the marine environment as natural antimicrobial agents with proper evidence from the past

Keywords: Antibiotic resistance, Antimicrobial agent, Aquaculture, Application, Bacterial pathogen, Bacterial viruses, Bacteriophages, Biocontrol agent, Food safety, Formulation, Gut microbiome, Intra-body phageome, Lytic cycle, Multi-drug resistant, Preservative, Phage therapy, Phage resistance, Seafood, Temperate phage.