Sea cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus) is an economically important
aquaculture species, which is naturally distributed in the coasts of
Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea, China. Due to its nutritional and supposed
medicinal properties, this species is one of the most valuable sea foods
in Asian countries such as China, Japan and Korea. The market
demands for sea cucumber still remain high, indicating strong
consumer preferences for this favorable sea food. During the past
two decades, sea cucumber aquaculture has developed rapidly and
become a vigorous industry along the northern coasts of China.
However, the rapid expansion and intensification of sea cucumber
farming has resulted in various diseases caused by bacteria or viruses.
The use of antibiotics has partially solved this problem, but at the
same time, has raised concerns of antibiotic residues in other
aquaculture species and polluting environments (Chen et al., 2004).