REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Comparative Immunology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1612178
Autophagy in Aquatic Animals: Mechanisms, Implications, and Future Directions
Provisionally accepted
- 1Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Applied Marine Biology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Guangzhou, China
- 2Sanya National Marine Ecosystem Research Station, Hainan Tropical Marine Biology Research Station, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Sanya, China
- 3University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, Beijing, China
- 4Sylhet Agricultural University, Sylhet, Sylhet, Bangladesh
- 5South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Guangzhou, China
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Autophagy, a highly conserved intracellular degradation process, is essential for maintaining cellular homeostasis, supporting development, modulating immune responses, and enhancing stress adaptation in eukaryotic organisms. In aquatic animals, growing evidence highlights the central role of autophagy in responding to diverse environmental stressors and microbial challenges-factors critical to aquaculture productivity and ecosystem health. This review synthesizes current knowledge on the regulation and function of autophagy in aquatic species, emphasizing key molecular pathways, environmental triggers such as temperature, salinity, hypoxia, and pollutants, and host responses to pathogenic infections. We explore model systems, particularly zebrafish, that have advanced our mechanistic understanding of autophagy, while also identifying gaps in research concerning economically important aquaculture species. Promising applications, including the use of autophagy modulators, probiotics, and gene-editing tools such as CRISPR/Cas9, are evaluated for their potential in disease prevention and environmental monitoring. Despite recent progress, selective autophagy pathways and species-specific regulatory mechanisms remain poorly understood. Future studies integrating high-throughput screening, multi-omics analyses, and functional genetics are essential to unlock the full potential of autophagy-based innovations for sustainable aquaculture development.
Keywords: Autophagy, Autophagy-related gene (ATG), Aquatic animal health, Host-Pathogen Interactions, Lysosome-autophagy system
Received: 15 Apr 2025; Accepted: 19 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kawsar, Adikari and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yang Zhang, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Guangzhou, China
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