New Nutritional Strategies for Inducing Growth and Controlling Diseases in Aquaculture

Dear Colleagues,

The aquaculture industry faces unprecedented challenges that require innovative nutritional strategies transcending traditional growth promotion paradigms. This Special Issue introduces a comprehensive framework of bioactive compounds (probiotics, prebiotics, and phytobiotics) as tools for multidimensional host modulation in aquatic systems. Its contemporary application extends far beyond conventional growth enhancement, encompassing complex molecular mechanisms including microbiome engineering, quorum-sensing modulation, and epigenetic programming. This Special Issue integrates cutting-edge nutrigenomic concepts, where bioactive compound intervention orchestrates precise gene expression profiles leading to optimized host physiological responses. Through functional nutrition approaches, bioactive compounds serve as transcriptional modulators, influencing metabolic pathways that enhance disease resistance while simultaneously promoting sustainable growth patterns. The proposed model highlights microbiome–host interactions as dynamic ecosystems where bioactive compound-mediated quorum-sensing disruption provides novel disease control mechanisms independent of traditional antimicrobial approaches. Emerging evidence demonstrates that strategic compound supplementation can induce epigenetic modifications, thereby creating heritable changes in host phenotype without altering genetic sequences. This epigenetic dimension opens unprecedented opportunities for metabolic modulation, enabling aquaculture practitioners to program desired traits through targeted nutritional interventions. We invite researchers to contribute original investigations, including microbiome modulation, nutrigenomics and epigenetic gene regulation, and metabolic pathway alteration, in order to establish bioactive compounds as precision tools for sustainable aquaculture optimization.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Jorge Olmos-Soto
Guest Editor

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