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Review
. 2023 Jun 19:10:1160350.
doi: 10.3389/fvets.2023.1160350. eCollection 2023.

Alternatives to antibiotics for treatment of mastitis in dairy cows

Xiaoping Li  1 , Chuang Xu  1 , Bingchun Liang  1 , John P Kastelic  2 , Bo Han  1 , Xiaofang Tong  1 , Jian Gao  1
Affiliations
Review

Alternatives to antibiotics for treatment of mastitis in dairy cows

Xiaoping Li et al. Front Vet Sci. .

Abstract

Mastitis is considered the costliest disease on dairy farms and also adversely affects animal welfare. As treatment (and to a lesser extent prevention) of mastitis rely heavily on antibiotics, there are increasing concerns in veterinary and human medicine regarding development of antimicrobial resistance. Furthermore, with genes conferring resistance being capable of transfer to heterologous strains, reducing resistance in strains of animal origin should have positive impacts on humans. This article briefly reviews potential roles of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), herbal medicines, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), bacteriophages and their lytic enzymes, vaccination and other emerging therapies for prevention and treatment of mastitis in dairy cows. Although many of these approaches currently lack proven therapeutic efficacy, at least some may gradually replace antibiotics, especially as drug-resistant bacteria are proliferating globally.

Keywords: NSAIDs; antimicrobial peptides; bacteriophages; bovine mastitis; dairy cows; herbal medicines; vaccination.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mastitis in dairy cows. The circled numbers are to guide the reader through the sequence of mastitis. “*” represents the main causes of mastitis in cows (Created with BioRender.com).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Annual antibiotic usage on dairy farms in the United States. Reprinted from de Campos et al. (15) under CC-BY-NC-ND.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Mechanisms of action of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and commonly used NSAIDs (Created with BioRender.com).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Mechanism of phage lysis of host bacteria and published types of mastitis pathogenic bacteria targeted by phages. 1. Phage attaches to host bacterium and injects DNA. 2. Phage DNA enters the lytic or lysogenic cycle. 3a. DNA and protein synthesis followed by assembly of new phages. 4a. Lysis of the host bacterium, releasing a large number of new phages. 3b. Phage DNA is integrated into the host bacterium chromosome. 4b. Lysogenic bacterial have normal reproduction. 5. Under specific conditions, the prophage is isolated from the host bacterium genome and enters the lysis cycle (Created with BioRender.com).
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