Nanomaterials in Animal Nutrition and Disease Treatment: Recent Developments and Future Aspects

Raise in the human population requires increased demand for animal-derived food products. The quality of animal-derived food depends on the live-stock’s health and nutrition levels. Globally, every possible effort to make livestock disease accessible and health is in high demand. Supplementing food with essential minerals, vitamins and amino acids has been one of the easiest ways to improve livestock health. Recently, the intrinsic properties of nanoparticles (such as small size (1-100 nm), easy surface functionalization and high surface-to-volume ratio) have made them a potential candidate for different biomedical applications including nutrition. In the livestock sector, nanoparticles have been studied for their nutritional effect as well as its antibacterial, anti-parasitic and anti-helminthic properties. Only a handful of nanoparticles, such as ZnONPs, CuONPs, SeNPs, Fe₂O₃ NPs and AgNPs, have been studied for different applications using livestock models. Apart from this, liposomes, polymeric micelles and SiO₂NPs are being widely learned as vaccine adjuvants because they can improve antigen presentation, target delivery, stimulate innate immunity and induce strong T cell responsiveness, which makes them ideal for vaccine adjuvants. This book chapter has been designed to comprehensively present nanomaterials’ application for animal nutrition, therapeutic agents against various disease-causing microbes, parasites and fungi and as a vaccine adjuvant.