Overview of the use of exogenous enzymes in aquaculture: The functionality of exogenous enzymes in aquaculture

Abstract Aquaculture is playing a pivotal role in meeting the growing global request for seafood products. One of the important aspects of aquaculture management is using of high-quality ingredients to improve the performance of fish and crustaceans. One of the main priorities of nutrition scientists over the past decades is to partially or totally replace fish meal (FM) with different plant protein ingredients. Furthermore, plant proteins contain anti-nutritional components, which poses a drawback for their use in fish feed. Therefore, to effectively utilize plant components in feeds, it is necessary to reduce anti-nutritional factors. Recently, exogenous enzymes as feed additives are gaining interest in the aquafeed industry to increase the nutritive values of plant protein as a reasonable solution for FM substitution, leading to enhanced nutrient retention, growth performance and profits for the aquaculture stakeholders. The present review will discuss the potential of various exogenous enzymes to increase the quality of various plant proteins in feed for more sustainable aquaculture practices