Ruminants produce significant amounts of methane during their digestive process, making livestock one of the largest sources of anthropogenic greenhouse gasses. Several solutions have been proposed to address this problem, including inoculation of ruminants against microorganisms responsible for methane synthesis in the rumen.
1. Introduction
Methane (CH
4) is one of the most important greenhouse gasses; its negative effect on global warming is 21 times greater than that of carbon dioxide (CO
2)
[1]. In addition, livestock is the human activity that generates the most CH
4, as ruminants emit large amounts during their digestive processes. This gas is formed in the forestomach (rumen) of ruminants by methanogenic archaea
[2]. During normal rumen function, plant material is degraded to produce volatile fatty acids, ammonia, hydrogen (H
2), and CO
2. Rumen methanogens principally consume H
2 to reduce CO
2 to CH
4 [3]. Cattle, buffalo, and small ruminants release the equivalent of 2448 million tons of CO
2 from both enteric processes and manure fermentation
[4]. Within the farm environment, enteric fermentation is the most important source of CH
4 emissions
[5]. Thus, enteric CH
4 generated in the gastrointestinal tracts of livestock is the single largest source of anthropogenic CH
4 [6]. In the rumen, numerous prokaryotic (bacteria and archaea) and eukaryotic microorganisms (protozoa and fungi) work together to degrade the feedstuff consumed by the host ruminant
[7]. In fact, on a well-managed confinement farm, enteric fermentation contributes about 45% of the total emission of greenhouse gases by the whole system. On more extensive grazing farms, these greenhouse-gas emissions could be even higher. For example, increased milk production has a positive correlation with CH
4 emission
[8]. Given that the livestock sector is one of the fastest-growing parts of the worldwide agricultural economy
[9], the demand for milk and dairy products is expected to increase in coming decades, and thus so too are the CH
4 emissions. It is therefore of utmost importance to find ways to mitigate the CH
4 emissions from enteric fermentation. Mitigation approaches targeted at reducing CH
4 must consider their effects on both enteric and manure fermentation, which account for approximately 90% and 10% of CH
4 emissions, respectively
[6]. Common approaches to reduce CH
4 emissions in ruminants include dietary manipulation, drugs to reduce or control the quantity of methanogenic microorganisms in the gut, and/or vaccination. However, current strategies to inhibit methanogen activities in the rumen typically fail or have limited success due to low efficacy, poor selectivity, microorganism resistance, toxicity, or side effects of the compounds or drugs in the host species
[3]. Dietary modification is the most-used strategy to reduce CH
4 in ruminants, taking into account that different concentrates, subproducts, and/or forage combinations can reduce the quantity of CH
4 production from the rumen
[10[10][11][12],
11,12], e.g., Goetsch
[13] theorized that plant secondary metabolites could decrease CH
4 emission, permitting the use of H
2 to increase propionate production.
The control of animal diseases utilizes several strategies. Vaccines are one of the most important approaches, particularly on livestock farms
[14]. The use of vaccines in these production sectors is increasing every year, especially for zoonotic diseases and those with significant effects on international trade
[15]. However, concern regarding climate change has also increased dramatically. Reduction of emissions could therefore become economically attractive in the near future, making it viable to produce and market vaccines to mitigate climate change.
2. Antimethanogen Vaccines to Reduce CH4 in Ruminants
Several key points should be considered in the development of a successful strategy regarding the use of vaccines to reduce methane production from ruminal fermentation (
Figure 1). Many articles and reviews have cited this possibility
[26,30,65][16][17][18]. However, experimental research carried out between 1995 and 2020 was scarce in the consulted database (
Table 1).
Figure 1. Schematic overview of key points to consider for the use of vaccines to decrease methane emissions from ruminal fermentation.
Table 1.
Summary of experimental designs used in research into vaccination for mitigating methane in ruminants.