ABSTRACT
The use of broad-spectrum classical antibiotics may induce an antibiotic-resistant mechanism of bacteria and an accumulation of unused residues of drugs in the environment, which, in turn, results in long-term
negative effects on human and animal health. Thus, scientic communities have proposed friendly alternatives such as vaccines, antibiotic substitutes, and probiotics (Nguyen et al., 2013; Cheng et al., 2014). However, the use of vaccines is often laborious, costly, and highly stressful to the animals. Therefore, pharmabiotics, or probiotics, prebiotics, bacteriocins, bacteriophages, and bioactive molecules are being introduced to be used in food, aquaculture, livestock, and clinical settings. This chapter focuses on the potential of marine glycans from seaweed and probiotic bacteria for use as prebiotics, bioactive molecules, or in combination with probiotics to develop highly effective synbiotics.
