Omonijo F, A Ganai N, M. Ibeagha-Awemu E, Mudasir Ahmad S. Immunotherapy in mastitis: state of knowledge, research gaps and way forward

Mastitis is an inflammatory condition that affects dairy cow's mammary glands. Traditional treatment approaches with antibiotics are increasingly leading to challenging scenarios such as antimicrobial resistance. In order to mitigate the unwanted side effects of antibiotics, alternative strategies such as those that harness the host immune system response, also known as immunotherapy, have been implemented. Immunotherapy approaches to treat bovine mastitis aims to enhance the cow's immune response against pathogens by promoting pathogen clearance, and facilitating tissue repair. Various studies have demonstrated the potential of immunotherapy for reducing the incidence, duration and severity of mastitis. Nevertheless, majority of reported therapies are lacking in specificity hampering their broad application to treat mastitis. Meanwhile, advancements in mastitis immunotherapy hold great promise for the dairy industry, with potential to provide effective and sustainable alternatives to traditional antibiotic-based approaches. This review synthesizes immunotherapy strategies, their current understanding and potential future perspectives. The future perspectives should focus on the development of precision immunotherapies tailored to address individual pathogens/group of pathogens, development of combination therapies to address antimicrobial resistance, and the integration of nano- and omics technologies. By addressing research gaps, the field of mastitis immunotherapy can make significant strides in the control, treatment and prevention of mastitis, ultimately benefiting both animal and human health/welfare, and environment health.

Beyond conventional antibiotics approaches: Global perspectives on alternative therapeutics including herbal prevention, and proactive management strategies in bovine mastitis

Mastitis, an intramammary inflammation resulting from microbial infectious agents, continues to pose a significant challenge within the dairy sector, adversely affecting animal well-being and leading to substantial economic losses. These losses are attributed to decreased milk production, heightened culling rates, and the expenses related to diagnostics, veterinary care, medication, and labor. Moreover, additional costs emerge due to reduced forthcoming milk yields, compromised reproductive health, and increased susceptibility to various illnesses. Identifying the responsible agents is crucial for disease management and the implementation of antimicrobial treatments. Despite the prevalent use of antibiotic treatment, the pressing need for new therapeutic alternatives to combat bovine mastitis arises from limitations, including low cure rates, rising resistance, and the presence of antibiotic residues in milk. This review explores the potential application of herbal extracts and essential oils known for their antimicrobial properties as alternative options for managing pathogens in mastitis treatment. It examines various treatment methods and management strategies, particularly emphasizing the progress of herbal remedies and natural therapeutics in addressing mastitis, a significant concern in bovine populations and dairy herds.

Sustainable Applications of Nanopropolis to Combat Foodborne Illnesses

Propolis has numerous biological properties and technological potential, but its low solubility in water makes its use quite difficult. With the advent of nanotechnology, better formulations with propolis, such as nanopropolis, can be achieved to improve its properties. Nanopropolis is a natural nanomaterial with several applications, including in the maintenance of food quality. Food safety is a global public health concern since food matrices are highly susceptible to contamination of various natures, leading to food loss and transmission of harmful foodborne illness. Due to their smaller size, propolis nanoparticles are more readily absorbed by the body and have higher antibacterial and antifungal activities than common propolis. This review aims to understand whether using propolis with nanotechnology can help preserve food and prevent foodborne illness. Nanotechnology applied to propolis formulations proved to be effective against pathogenic microorganisms of industrial interest, making it possible to solve problems of outbreaks that can occur through food.

Advances in Diagnostic Approaches and Therapeutic Management in Bovine Mastitis

Mastitis causes huge economic losses to dairy farmers worldwide, which largely negatively affects the quality and quantity of milk. Mastitis decreases overall milk production, degrades milk quality, increases milk losses because of milk being discarded, and increases overall production costs due to higher treatment and labour costs and premature culling. This review article discusses mastitis with respect to its clinical epidemiology, the pathogens involved, economic losses, and basic and advanced diagnostic tools that have been used in recent times to diagnose mastitis effectively. There is an increasing focus on the application of novel therapeutic approaches as an alternative to conventional antibiotic therapy because of the decreasing effectiveness of antibiotics, emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, issue of antibiotic residues in the food chain, food safety issues, and environmental impacts. This article also discussed nanoparticles'/chitosan's roles in antibiotic-resistant strains and ethno-veterinary practices for mastitis treatment in dairy cattle.

The Antimicrobial Applications of Nanoparticles in Veterinary Medicine: A Comprehensive Review

Nanoparticles (NPs) are nanoscaled particles sized from 1-100 nm, which can be composed of inorganic or organic compounds. NPs have distinctive morphology, size, structure, and surface features, which give them specific properties. These particular attributes make them interesting for biological and medical applications. Due to these characteristics, researchers are studying the possible aptness of numerous nanoparticles in veterinary medicine, such as the capacity to act as a drug delivery system. The use of these NPs as a possible bactericidal or bacteriostatic medication has been studied against different bacteria, especially multiresistant strains and the ones that cause mastitis disease. The antibiofilm property of these nanostructures has also already been proved. The antiviral activity has also been shown for some important viral animal diseases; the antifungal activity had been demonstrated against both pathogenic and mycotoxigenic species. Therefore, this review aimed to elucidate the main clinical and preventive veterinary applications of inorganic and organic nanoparticles.

Polymeric nanoparticles for the delivery of Sonoran desert propolis: Synthesis, characterization and antiproliferative activity on cancer cells

Sonoran propolis (SP) exerts remarkable biological activities attributed to its polyphenolic composition, mostly described as poplar-type flavonoids. It is known that polyphenols present low bioavailability derived of their molecular weight, glycosylation level, metabolic conversion, as well as interaction with the intestinal microbiota, affording limitations for possible in vivo applications. The aim of this work was to synthesize Poly-(lactide-co-glycolide) acid (PLGA) nanoparticles for encapsulation of SP, as a matrix to increase solubility of their polyphenolic compounds and improve delivery, for the evaluation of its antiproliferative activity on cancer cells. The Sonoran propolis-loaded PLGA nanoparticles (SP-PLGA NPs) were synthesized (by nanoprecipitation), and their physicochemical parameters were determined (size, morphology, zeta potential, stability, and drug release). Additionally, the antiproliferative activity of SP-PLGA nanoparticles was evaluated in vitro against murine (M12.C3.F6) and human (HeLa) cancer cell lines, including a non-cancer human cell line (ARPE-19) as control. SP-PLGA NPs presented a mean size of 152.6 ± 7.1 nm with an average negative charge of - 21.2 ± 0.7 mV. The encapsulation yield of SP into PLGA system was approximately 68.2 ± 6.0% with an in vitro release of 45% of propolis content at 48 h. SP-PLGA NPs presented antiproliferative activity against both cancer cell lines tested, with lower IC₅₀ values in M12.C3.F6 and HeLa cell lines (7.8 ± 0.4 and 3.8 ± 0.4 μg/mL, respectively) compared to SP (24.0 ± 4.3 and 7.4 ± 0.4 μg/mL, respectively). In contrast, the IC₅₀ of SP-PLGA NPs and SP against ARPE-19 was higher than 50 µg/mL. Cancer cells treated with SP and SP-PLGA NPs presented morphological features characteristic of apoptosis (cellular shrinkage and membrane blebs), as well as elongated cells, effect previously reported for SP, meanwhile, no morphological changes were observed with ARPE-19 cells. The obtained delivery system demonstrates appropriate encapsulation characteristics and antiproliferative activity to be used in the field of nanomedicine, therefore SP could be potentially used in antitumoral in vivo assays upon its encapsulation into PLGA nanoparticles.

Advances in therapeutic and managemental approaches of bovine mastitis: a comprehensive review

Mastitis (intramammary inflammation) caused by infectious pathogens is still considered a devastating condition of dairy animals affecting animal welfare as well as economically incurring huge losses to the dairy industry by means of decreased production performance and increased culling rates. Bovine mastitis is the inflammation of the mammary glands/udder of bovines, caused by bacterial pathogens, in most cases. Routine diagnosis is based on clinical and subclinical forms of the disease. This underlines the significance of early and rapid identification/detection of etiological agents at the farm level, for which several diagnostic techniques have been developed. Therapeutic regimens such as antibiotics, immunotherapy, bacteriocins, bacteriophages, antimicrobial peptides, probiotics, stem cell therapy, native secretory factors, nutritional, dry cow and lactation therapy, genetic selection, herbs, and nanoparticle technology-based therapy have been evaluated for their efficacy in the treatment of mastitis. Even though several strategies have been developed over the years for the purpose of managing both clinical and subclinical forms of mastitis, all of them lacked the efficacy to eliminate the associated etiological agent when used as a monotherapy. Further, research has to be directed towards the development of new therapeutic agents/techniques that can both replace conventional techniques and also solve the problem of emerging antibiotic resistance. The objective of the present review is to describe the etiological agents, pathogenesis, and diagnosis in brief along with an extensive discussion on the advances in the treatment and management of mastitis, which would help safeguard the health of dairy animals.

Nanomaterials and Essential Oils as Candidates for Developing Novel Treatment Options for Bovine Mastitis

Nanomaterials have been used for diagnosis and therapy in the human medical field, while their application in veterinary medicine and animal production is still relatively new. Nanotechnology, however, is a rapidly growing field, offering the possibility of manufacturing new materials at the nanoscale level, with the formidable potential to revolutionize the agri-food sector by offering novel treatment options for prevalent and expensive illnesses such as bovine mastitis. Since current treatments are becoming progressively more ineffective in resistant bacteria, the development of innovative products based on both nanotechnology and phytotherapy may directly address a major global problem, antimicrobial resistance, while providing a sustainable animal health solution that supports the production of safe and high-quality food products. This review summarizes the challenges encountered presently in the treatment of bovine mastitis, emphasizing the possibility of using new-generation nanomaterials (e.g., biological synthesized nanoparticles and graphene) and essential oils, as candidates for developing novel treatment options for bovine mastitis.

Formulation and evaluation of anti-MRSA nanoemulsion loaded with Achyrocline satureioides: a new sustainable strategy for the bovine mastitis

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) causes mastitis in dairy cattle with serious economic and public health significance. This study developed nanoemulsions of Linum usitatissimun oil loaded with Achyrocline satureioides (macela) extract and investigated their in vitro antimicrobial activity against MRSA. Macela-nanoemulsions (NE-ML) were prepared using high-pressure homogenization (HPH) with different proportions of flaxseed oil, Tween 80 and crude extract. Four majoritarian flavonoids were identified in the macela extract: 3-O methylquercetin, achyrobichalcone, quercetin and luteolin (187.3 ± 0.1, 155.4 ± 11.6, 76.3 ± 0.1 and 30.4 ± 0.0 μg ml−1, respectively). NE-ML nanoemulsions were successfully obtained by the HPH method and showed a milky aspect with yellowish color. The mean particle size was around 200 nm with monodisperse distribution (PdI < 0.2), remaining stable for 160 days at room temperature. When analyzed on a LUMiSizer high-end dispersion analyzer, low values were found (≤0.5), indicating high stability index, mainly for NE-ML1:5 (0.2). The encapsulation efficiency of macela-nanoemulsions was greater than 94%, considering the four chemical compounds from extract. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) against planktonic bacteria, inhibition of biofilm formation (MBIC), and eradication of MRSA biofilms (MBEC) were determined through in vitro tests on microplates. The MIC of NE-ML against planktonic MRSA showed values ranging from 1.2 to 10% (v/v), while blank-nanoemulsions (NE-B, without macela extract) showed values ranging from 6 to 50% (v/v). MBIC and MBEC of NE-ML were 25 and 80% (v/v), respectively. MBIC showed a mass reduction greater than 64%, and MBEC showed a mass reduction greater than 73%. Macela-nanoemulsions (NE-ML), mainly NE-ML1:5, showed high antimicrobial activity and appeared to represent a new alternative of sustainable antimicrobial product for the control of MRSA. Since this innovative nanoemulsion can impact animal health, future research should include in vitro and in vivo studies to evaluate intramammary therapy and control of MRSA infections in organic and agroecological milk production systems.