Enhancing Aquatic Animal Resilience to Environmental Stressors via Gene and Metabolic Regulation

Environmental stressors such as temperature fluctuations, hypoxia, pollution, and osmotic imbalances significantly impact the physiology, growth, and survival of aquatic animals. This review summarizes current knowledge on how gene regulation and metabolic adaptation work together to enhance resilience in aquatic species. Gene regulatory mechanisms—including transcriptional control, epigenetic modifications, and post-transcriptional adjustments—enable precise and dynamic responses to environmental changes. Metabolic reprogramming simultaneously modulates energy use, antioxidant production, and osmotic balance, forming an integrated defense against cellular and systemic damage. Recent biotechnological advances, such as CRISPR-based genome editing, omics-driven selective breeding, and nutrigenomic feed strategies, offer new opportunities to improve stress resilience in aquaculture species. However, challenges remain due to multi-stressor complexity, genetic diversity, environmental variability, and regulatory and ethical constraints. Future research should integrate multi-omics approaches with real-time environmental monitoring to identify robust biomarkers and optimize interventions. Responsible application of molecular and metabolic insights through interdisciplinary efforts will be key to sustainable aquaculture, strengthening aquatic animal resilience under climate change and anthropogenic pressures while safeguarding ecosystem health and food security.

کلیدواژه ها:

Environmental stressors ، Gene regulation ، Metabolic regulation ، Aquatic animal resilience ، Biotechnological interventions