This Research Topic is the second volume of the “Aquatic Nutrition and Intestine Immunity” Community Series. Please see volume I here.

Aquaculture supplies large quantities of high-value proteins to human beings. It is of great importance to explore functional nutrients to improve immunity and keep the health of different aquatic animals.

The intestinal tract is the main absorption and digestion site of fish and shellfish nutrients, and it is crucial for aquatic animal development, and its health is conducive to the normal exercise of fish and shellfish physiological functions. All nutrients are essential to ensure the health of the gut, nutrient deficiency will disturb the normal physiological function and metabolism, lead to the occurrence of pathological processes such as intestinal inflammation, intestinal structural damage, oxidative stress, and protein damage, then affect the normal growth and development of fish and shellfish.

Due to the limitation of fishmeal resources and the increasing amount of aquaculture globally, soybean meal is widely used for its low cost and high protein as a fish meal substitute in the feed industry. However, due to the presence of anti-nutritional factors, the large use of soybean meal causes a series of negative effects on the growth and intestinal health of aquaculture animals. Previous studies showed that soybean meal and antigen protein like glycinin or ß-conglycinin could destroy the intestinal structure, decrease villi thickness and width of the fish intestine, and induce innate immunity (eosinophil, neutrophil, macrophages, and lymphocytes increased). Some results showed that glycinin and ß-conglycinin were the cause of intestinal inflammation, which increased the gene expression of TNF-a, IL-1ß, and TGF-ß. Intestinal health is of great significance to the healthy breeding of fish and shellfish. Therefore, how to ensure intestinal health when feeding high soybean meal feed has attracted wide attention.

The underlying regulatory mechanism in aquatic animal nutrition and intestine immunity remains largely unresolved. This Special Issue showcases a collection of Original Research and Review articles that highlight the latest discoveries and advances in aquatic animal nutrition and intestine immunity. In improving our understanding of the nutritional immunity regulation in multiple aspects of aquatic animals, there is potential to develop functional feed components to promote the continual blooming of the aquaculture industry.

The goal of this Research Topic is to provide a forum to advance research on the contribution of improving our understanding of the nutritional immunity regulation in multiple aspects of aquatic animals’ intestines.

A Research Topic on “Aquatic Nutrition and Intestine Immunity” had the bullet points as below:

1) Mechanisms of functional nutrients to regulate intestine immunity;

2) The important role of intestine immunity in aquatic animal health;

3) Exploring new functional nutrients for improving immunity and explaining the application effect.

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Frontiers in Immunology

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