Engineering insects for novel food/feed and waste management

用于新型食品/饲料和废物管理的工程昆虫

• 批准号: BB/Y008014/1
• 负责人: Luke Alphey
• 金额: $ 198.09万
• 依托单位: University of York
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FY008014%2F1
• 关键词: Engineering; insects; novel; food; feed

Insects have enormous potential for low-carbon food production, also waste-management if using waste as feedstock. This application addresses engineering biology to address two critical needs - (i) the need for efficient, low-carbon production of high-quality nutrients (e.g. protein, lipid) for food and feed use - food systems (primary), and (ii) the need for eco-friendly recycling of organic waste - environmental solutions. Insect mass-rearing represents an attractive solution for each of these. Insects are highly efficient feed converters, much more so than livestock or even poultry, while also needing less land and with far lower greenhouse gas emissions. Direct use for humans at scale remains a marketing challenge, but major applications including fish and poultry feed, and pet food, are already available. Insects also provide frass, and material from which high-value products such as chitin may be purified. Additionally, some insects can be reared effectively on low-value organic waste, converting a wide range of input material into insect biomass. Black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens, BSF) - the subject of this proposal - is perhaps the exemplar for waste management, and one of several attractive options for food and feed use. These two applications are overlapping but distinct - different territories have different rules about input material, but insects reared on sewage, for example, typically cannot be used directly for feed, though valuable by-products may still be purified from the insect biomass.BSF has increasingly garnered international attention for its exceptional ability to bio-convert nutrient-poor organic waste feed into body mass suitable for animal consumption and fertilisers for plants. As the use of BSF larvae (BSFL) as animal feed is at a relatively early stage, research has naturally focused on testing the range of substrates it can utilise as food and optimising mass rearing methods for bioconversion efficiency. However, there is only so much one can do with selective breeding and mass rearing - fundamental biological limitations will still apply despite having the best genetics and rearing protocol. Some obvious limitations of BSF as animal feed include: lower polyunsaturated fatty acid content compared to housefly maggots, mealworms, and adult crickets, inefficient conversion of lignocellulosic substrates, and susceptibility to DDT and pyrethroids, insecticides which may be present in crop residues. These would be extremely challenging to address by conventional breeding, but potentially amenable to an engineering approach.In short, BSF has enormous potential but wild-type insects are not ideal for all applications - this proposal aims to develop a platform and prototypes for rational engineering of black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens, BSF). This has a wide range of potential applications, of which we develop two as practical examples - to expand the range of input material it can utilise by allowing enhanced use of insecticide-contaminated waste, and to adjust the composition, here fatty acid composition, of the insect to add value to harvested product. In future, such a platform could provide a basis for a wide range of enhanced traits, for example digestion of currently indigestible source material, perhaps lignocellulosic waste such as cereal stubble, or even plastics. Arthropods with suitable enzymes and pathways are known; an engineering platform would allow specific desirable traits to be transferred to an amenable chassis organism such as BSF.

昆虫具有低碳粮食生产的巨大潜力，如果将废物用作原料，也具有废物管理。该应用程序介绍了工程生物学，以满足两个关键需求 - （i）需要高效，低碳生产高质量营养素（例如蛋白质，脂质）用于食物和饲料使用 - 食品系统（主要），以及（ii）需要对有机废物环境解决方案进行生态友好友好型回收。昆虫质量代表着每一种的有吸引力的解决方案。昆虫是高效的饲料转换器，比牲畜甚至家禽更重要，同时还需要更少的土地和较低的温室气体排放。在大规模上对人类的直接使用仍然是一项营销挑战，但是已经提供了包括鱼类和家禽饲料以及宠物食品在内的主要应用。昆虫还提供杂种和材料，可以从中纯化高价值产品（例如几丁质产物）。此外，某些昆虫可以在低价值有机废物上有效饲养，从而将广泛的输入材料转化为昆虫生物量。黑人士兵飞行（Hermetia Illucens，BSF） - 该提案的主题 - 也许是废物管理的典范，也是食品和饲料使用的几种有吸引力的选择之一。这两种应用是重叠但独特的 - 不同的领土对输入材料有不同的规则，但是，在污水上饲养的昆虫通常不能直接用于饲料，尽管有价值的副产品仍然可以从昆虫生物库中纯化。BSF越来越多地从越来越多地吸引了国际上的国际关注，因为它具有出色的植物量为植物的植物量，并适用于植物量的植物，并适用于体内的肥料。由于将BSF幼虫（BSFL）用作动物饲料处于相对较早的阶段，研究自然集中于测试它可以用作食物的底物范围，并优化质量饲养方法以提高生物转化效率。但是，选择性育种和质量饲养只能做到这一点 - 尽管具有最佳的遗传学和饲养方案，但基本的生物学限制仍然适用。 BSF作为动物饲料的一些明显的局限性包括：与房屋蝇虫，粉虫和成人板球相比，多不饱和脂肪酸含量较低，木质纤维素底物的效率低下，对DDT和甲状腺动物的易感性，可能存在于农作物中。通过常规育种来解决这些问题极具挑战性，但有可能接受工程方法。简而言之，BSF具有巨大的潜力，但野生型昆虫并不是所有应用的理想选择 - 该提案旨在开发一个平台和原型，用于黑人士兵的合理工程（Hermetia Illucens，BSF，BSF）。这具有广泛的潜在应用，我们将两个作为实际示例开发出来 - 通过增强使用杀虫剂污染的废物的使用来扩大其可以利用的输入材料的范围，并调整昆虫的脂肪酸组成的组成，以增加收获产品的价值。将来，这样的平台可以为广泛的增强性状提供基础，例如消化当前不可消化的原始材料，也许是木质纤维素废物，例如谷物茬，甚至是塑料。具有合适酶和途径的节肢动物是已知的。工程平台将允许将特定理想的特征转移到BSF等易木底盘生物体中。