Alejandro Villasante

• DVM, Msc, PhD
• Professor (Associate) at University of the Americas

Serum proteins are essential for maintaining osmotic pressure, regulating pH, transporting metabolites, and supporting immune responses. Studying the effects of plant-based diets on these proteins is crucial to understanding their impact on fish health and immune function. Methods: This study was conducted in a recirculation system, with rainbow tr...

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted tilapia farming worldwide, causing a notable decline in production and marketing since 2020. To address post-pandemic challenges, such as antibiotic resistance and the need for sustainable feed enhancement strategies, probiotics have emerged as a promising solution. However, systematic evaluation bas...

To meet growing fish demand, aquaculture must develop sustainable, cost‐effective, and high‐performance fish feed formulations for industry advancement. Plant‐based lipids are a viable alternative to forage fish ingredients in finfish diets. However, most plant‐derived lipids lack long‐chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC‐PUFA) like EPA and DHA, w...

Vibrio species are naturally found in estuarine and marine ecosystems, but are also recognized as significant human enteropathogens, often linked to seafood-related illnesses. In aquaculture settings, Vibrio poses a substantial risk of infectious diseases, resulting in considerable stock losses and prompting the use of antimicrobials. However, this...

Aquaculture plays a crucial role in addressing the growing global demand for food. However, diseases associated with intensive aquaculture practices, especially those affecting the skin, can present significant challenges to both fish health and the industry as a whole. Strawberry disease (SD), also known as red-mark syndrome, is a persistent and n...

Data regarding the pandemic's impact on tilapia culture remain limited, but it is known that there was a significant decline in production and marketing since 2020. The post-pandemic challenges confronting tilapia farming necessitate prompt solutions, encompassing the management of bacterial infections and the adoption of more advanced technologies...

Creatine is a popular ergogenic sport supplement used to improve exercise performance and muscle growth in athletes. Further, studies suggest protective effects of creatine in neurodegenerative diseases, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, aging and fatty liver disease in humans. Similarly, the versatility of creatine, as a supplement or...

Fish microbiota studies have mostly addressed intestinal bacterial communities because of their role in fish physiology; however, the skin microbiota has been studied less despite its role as the first pathogen barrier in the host. DNA-based molecular techniques have contributed to improving our understanding of the skin microbiota, but this approa...

The present study investigated the spermatological characteristics of raw semen of Lebranche mullet (Mugil liza), namely pH, and sperm density, and motility; and subsequently evaluated the effects of different times of exposure to cryoprotectants, and the application of an ultra-rapid freezing protocol, on sperm motility and plasma membrane integri...

Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) fed a carbohydrate-rich diet exhibit suboptimal growth performance, along with other metabolic disturbances. It is well known that gut microbes play a pivotal role in influencing metabolism of the host, and these microbes can be modified by the diet. The main goal of the present study was to determine the effect of fee...

Introducción En la descripción clásica, la comunidad compleja de microorganismos que habitan los sitios del cuerpo en los que las superficies y cavidades están abiertas al medio se denomina microbiota; inicialmente, esto se llamó microflora o biota microbiana. Además, las superficies epiteliales de los peces y todos los demás vertebrados están colo...

Introducción: Las tendencias actuales en vida saludable convergen en procurar un cuidado de diferentes factores biológicos y físicos, los cuales inciden directa o indirectamente sobre la salud. Lo anterior, es aplicable tanto para el hombre como para otras especies animales. Entre estos factores, la nutrición posee un rol crítico, no obstante, una...

Withering syndrome (WS), an infectious disease caused by intracellular bacteria Candidatus Xenohaliotis californiensis, has provoked significant economic losses in abalone aquaculture. The pathogen infects gastroenteric epithelia, including digestive gland, disrupting the digestive system and causing a progressive wilting in abalone. Nonetheless, o...

Our knowledge regarding microbiota associated with the swim bladder of physostomous, fish with the swim bladder connected to the esophagus via the pneumatic duct, remains largely unknown. The goal of this study was to conduct the first in-depth characterization of the swim bladder-associated microbiota using high-throughput sequencing of the V4 reg...

Simple Summary Carbohydrates, in the form of energy reserve polysaccharides, are major food components that supply low-cost energy in farm animal feed formulation. Most of these compounds are obtained from plant ingredients (i.e., cereal grains). As the aquaculture industry moves towards formulating marine-derived ingredients free diets, the inclus...

Volume 32, No. 4, Page 386–389, 2017 <Page 1, left column> L4: Ref. 9 and 17 should be replaced with 10 and 19, respectively. L10: Ref. 7 and 8 should be replaced with 8 and 9, respectively. L14: “cost-efficient buoyancy-controlling” should be replaced by “energy cost-efficient buoyancy-controlling”. L15: Ref. 23 and 26 should be replaced with 26...

The main goal of the present study was to address the effect of feeding fermented soybean meal-based diet to Atlantic salmon on gut microbiota. Further, expression of genes of interest, including cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide (cath), mucin 2 (muc2), aquaporin (aqp8ab), and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (pcna), in proximal intestine of fis...

The aim of the present study was to identify major bacteria associated with the swim bladder in the rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss. We extracted DNA from the swim bladder and gut contents in order to perform a temporal temperature gradient gel electrophoresis (TTGE) analysis of 16S rRNA amplicons for bacterial identification to further compare...

A study was conducted to determine the benefits of the intake of purple corn extract (PCE), a natural source of anthocyanins, in rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss. A control or test diet supplemented with 5% PCE was fed to triplicate tanks with 25 fish each for 8 wk. The concentrations of three anthocyanins, cyanidin-3-glucoside, pelargonidin-3-gl...

In order to determine oxidative stress in equine joints with degenerative processes, we analyzed synovial fluid (SF) antioxidant capacity and the concentration of oxidative damage biomarkers in healthy and chronically damaged metacarpophalangeal joints. SF samples were collected from joints of thirty 2-5 year-old crossbreed male equine, macroscopic...

La acuicultura en Chile ha adquirido una importancia que pocos sectores productores de alimento han igualado. Con un volumen de producción para el 2005 de 739.369 toneladas de las cuales un 67% correspondió sólo a especies salmonídeas, deja en evidencia la urgente necesidad de diversificar este sector productivo altamente concentrado (SalmonChile,...