Authors
Ying-Ying Liu, Wen-Xin Jiang, Yu Chen, Hua-Li Li, Yu-Qing Sun, Hui-Bo Ren, Xiong-Gui Hu, Chen Chen, Wei-Min Jiang, Yi Xiao, Rui-Hua Huang, Jia-Shun Chen, Ying-Lin Peng, You-Gui Li, Yu-Long Yin
Published in
Frontiers in veterinary science. Volume 13. Pages 1903941. Epub Jul 22, 2026.
Abstract
The intensive use of antibiotics in juvenile livestock and aquaculture has led to serious public health risks such as drug residues, bacterial resistance, and environmental pollution, creating an urgent need for safe and efficient antibiotic alternatives. Flavonoids from mulberry leaves (FML), as typical natural polyphenolic compounds, exhibit strong antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, intestinal microbiota-regulating, and metabolic-improving activities, showing great potential in promoting juvenile animal health. This review sorts out global published literature concerning FML biological functions and animal feeding trials to clarify its multi-target regulatory mechanisms and practical application value in young animals. We integrated research data covering weaned piglets, calves, juvenile fish and broiler chicks, summarized core signaling pathways mediated by FML, and consolidated in vivo phenotypic effects observed across different juvenile animal models. Mechanistic analysis demonstrates that FML activates the Nrf2 pathway to alleviate oxidative damage, inhibits NF-κB/TLR4/MAPK inflammatory cascades, stabilizes intestinal barrier integrity and microbiota homeostasis, and regulates IRS-1/PI3K/GLUT4 and PPARα pathways to optimize glucose and lipid metabolism. Feeding trials further confirm that FML supplementation effectively mitigates weaning stress, lowers diarrhea rates, enhances non-specific immunity and improves overall growth performance of juvenile animals. Nevertheless, widespread application of FML is still constrained by unresolved issues including inconsistent optimal dosages across species, low in vivo bioavailability, and insufficient large-scale farm verification data. This paper summarizes these critical limitations and proposes feasible directions for subsequent mechanistic and applied research. Overall, this review offers comprehensive theoretical references for the development and popularization of FML as green feed additives within sustainable livestock and aquaculture systems.
PMID:
42558313
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 14 Sep 2026.
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