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Insects and Their Derived Products: Emerging Themes and Future Research Directions

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Biology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2024 | Viewed by 6045

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Xesús Feás

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Academy of Veterinary Sciences of Galicia, E-15707 Santiago, Galicia, Spain
Interests: insect; analytical chemistry; biopolymers
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Humans have exploited insects for various purposes since antiquity. Indeed, the role of insects in human evolutionary history and wellness is indisputable. Nevertheless, there is a large range of practically unexplored compounds in insects awaiting discovery and development. Insects and their derivatives serve a broad range of new applications, and these “raw products” have advanced at a dramatic pace into many research fields.

This Special Issue on “Insects and Their Derived Products: Emerging Themes and Future Research Directions” mainly focuses on cellular and molecular events induced by insect products and their derivatives, including basic studies in biochemistry, molecular biology, and molecular medicine. Contributions of review articles and original research, exploring aspects of the biological activity of insect products and their possible applications, not only in terms of composition, chemistry, analysis, but also of the impact on human health, are welcome. The Special Issue seeks to highlight specific subfields that are growing or especially timely, covering all aspects of basic and applied research dealing with insects. Clinical submissions with biomolecular experiments are of particular interest.

  • Insects as food and feed: processing, properties, and applications;
  • Biotechnology and biomedical uses of insects and its derivatives;
  • Novel omics studies of insects;
  • Recombinant protein production using insects;
  • Novel insect bioactive chemical molecules;
  • Toxins and drugs from insects;
  • Nutraceuticals and bioactive compounds from insects;
  • Biological activities of insects and insect-derived products.

Dr. Xesús Feás
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • insects
  • bioactives
  • nutraceuticals
  • biomedical
  • biotechnology
  • food
  • drugs
  • insect-based food
  • insect-derived bioactive peptides
  • entomotherapy
  • ethnoentomology
  • molecular insect biology

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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17 pages, 3090 KiB  
Article
Peeking into the Stingers: A Comprehensive SWATH-MS Study of the European Hornet Vespa crabro (Linnaeus, 1758) (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) Venom Sac Extracts
by Xesús Feás, Manuela Alonso-Sampedro, Susana Belén Bravo and Carmen Vidal
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2024, 25(7), 3798; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms25073798 - 28 Mar 2024
Viewed by 1014
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the venom sac extracts (VSEs) of the European hornet (EH) Vespa crabro (Linnaeus, 1758) (Hymenoptera: Vespidae), focusing on the differences between stinging females, gynes (G), and workers (W), at the protein level. Using a quantitative “Sequential Window Acquisition [...] Read more.
This study aimed to investigate the venom sac extracts (VSEs) of the European hornet (EH) Vespa crabro (Linnaeus, 1758) (Hymenoptera: Vespidae), focusing on the differences between stinging females, gynes (G), and workers (W), at the protein level. Using a quantitative “Sequential Window Acquisition of all Theoretical Fragment Ion Mass Spectra” (SWATH-MS) analysis, we identified and quantified a total of 240 proteins. Notably, within the group, 45.8% (n = 110) showed significant differential expression between VSE-G and VSE-W. In this set, 57.3% (n = 63) were upregulated and 42.7% (n = 47) downregulated in the G. Additionally, the two-hundred quantified proteins from the class Insecta belong to sixteen different species, six of them to the Hymenoptera/Apidae lineage, comprising seven proteins with known potential allergenicity. Thus, phospholipase A1 (Vesp v 1), phospholipase A1 verutoxin 2b (VT-2b), hyaluronidase A (Vesp v 2A), hyaluronidase B (Vesp v 2B), and venom allergen 5 (Vesp v 5) were significantly downregulated in the G, and vitellogenin (Vesp v 6) was upregulated. Overall, 46% of the VSE proteins showed differential expression, with a majority being upregulated in G. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD047955. These findings shed light on the proteomic differences in VSE between EH castes, potentially contributing to our understanding of their behavior and offering insights for allergy research. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insects and Their Derived Products: Emerging Themes and Future Research Directions)
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13 pages, 1537 KiB  
Article
Bacterial Community Survey of Wolbachia-Infected Parthenogenetic Parasitoid Trichogramma pretiosum (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) Treated with Antibiotics and High Temperature
by Wei Guo, Meijiao Zhang, Liangguan Lin, Chenxu Zeng, Yuping Zhang and Xiaofang He
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(9), 8448; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24098448 - 08 May 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1631
Abstract
Wolbachia has been shown to induce thelytokous parthenogenesis in Trichogramma species, which have been widely used as biological control agents around the world. Little is known about the changes of bacterial community after restoring arrhenotokous or bisexual reproduction in the T. pretiosum. [...] Read more.
Wolbachia has been shown to induce thelytokous parthenogenesis in Trichogramma species, which have been widely used as biological control agents around the world. Little is known about the changes of bacterial community after restoring arrhenotokous or bisexual reproduction in the T. pretiosum. Here, we investigate the emergence of males of T. pretiosum through curing experiments (antibiotics and high temperature), crossing experiments, and high-throughput 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing (rRNA-seq). The results of curing experiments showed that both antibiotics and high temperatures could cause the thelytokous T. pretiosum to produce male offspring. Wolbachia was dominant in the thelytokous T. pretiosum bacterial community with 99.01% relative abundance. With the relative abundance of Wolbachia being depleted by antibiotics, the diversity and relative content of other endosymbiotic bacteria increased, and the reproductive mode reverted from thelytoky to arrhenotoky in T. pretiosum. Although antibiotics did not eliminate Wolbachia in T. pretiosum, sulfadiazine showed an advantage in restoring entirely arrhenotokous and successive bisexual reproduction. This study was the first to demonstrate the bacterial communities in parthenogenetic Trichogramma before and after antibiotics or high-temperature treatment. Our findings supported the hypothesis that Wolbachia titer-dependence drives a reproduction switch in T. pretiosum between thelytoky and arrhenotoky. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insects and Their Derived Products: Emerging Themes and Future Research Directions)
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15 pages, 7518 KiB  
Article
De Novo Assembly and Characterization of the Transcriptome of an Omnivorous Camel Cricket (Tachycines meditationis)
by Jun-Hui Lu, De-Long Guan, Sheng-Quan Xu and Huateng Huang
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(4), 4005; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24044005 - 16 Feb 2023
Viewed by 1286
Abstract
Tachycines meditationis (Orthoptera: Rhaphidophoridae: Tachycines) is a widely distributed insect in eastern Asia. This species is common in urban environments, and its unique omnivorous diet may contribute to its success in various habitats. However, molecular studies on the species are scarce. Here, we [...] Read more.
Tachycines meditationis (Orthoptera: Rhaphidophoridae: Tachycines) is a widely distributed insect in eastern Asia. This species is common in urban environments, and its unique omnivorous diet may contribute to its success in various habitats. However, molecular studies on the species are scarce. Here, we obtained the first transcriptome sequence of T. meditationis and performed preliminary analyses to test whether the evolution of coding sequences fits the expectations based on the species’ ecology. We retrieved 476,495 effective transcripts and annotated 46,593 coding sequences (CDS). We analysed the codon usage and found that directional mutation pressure was the leading cause of codon usage bias in this species. This genome-wide relaxed codon usage pattern in T. meditationis is surprising, given the potentially large population size of this species. Moreover, despite the omnivorous diet, the chemosensory genes of this species do not exhibit codon usage deviating significantly from the genome-level pattern. They also do not seem to experience more gene family expansion than other cave cricket species do. A thorough search for rapidly evolved genes using the dN/dS value showed that genes associated with substance synthesis and metabolic pathways, such as retinol metabolism, aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis, and fatty acid metabolism, underwent species-specific positive selection. While some results seem to contradict the species ecology, our transcriptome assembly provides a valuable molecular resource for future studies on camel cricket evolution and molecular genetics for feeding ecology in insects, in general. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insects and Their Derived Products: Emerging Themes and Future Research Directions)
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Review

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16 pages, 823 KiB  
Review
Phylosymbiosis: The Eco-Evolutionary Pattern of Insect–Symbiont Interactions
by Man Qin, Liyun Jiang, Gexia Qiao and Jing Chen
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(21), 15836; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms242115836 - 31 Oct 2023
Viewed by 1117
Abstract
Insects harbor diverse assemblages of bacterial and fungal symbionts, which play crucial roles in host life history. Insects and their various symbionts represent a good model for studying host–microbe interactions. Phylosymbiosis is used to describe an eco-evolutionary pattern, providing a new cross-system trend [...] Read more.
Insects harbor diverse assemblages of bacterial and fungal symbionts, which play crucial roles in host life history. Insects and their various symbionts represent a good model for studying host–microbe interactions. Phylosymbiosis is used to describe an eco-evolutionary pattern, providing a new cross-system trend in the research of host-associated microbiota. The phylosymbiosis pattern is characterized by a significant positive correlation between the host phylogeny and microbial community dissimilarities. Although host–symbiont interactions have been demonstrated in many insect groups, our knowledge of the prevalence and mechanisms of phylosymbiosis in insects is still limited. Here, we provide an order-by-order summary of the phylosymbiosis patterns in insects, including Blattodea, Coleoptera, Diptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, and Lepidoptera. Then, we highlight the potential contributions of stochastic effects, evolutionary processes, and ecological filtering in shaping phylosymbiotic microbiota. Phylosymbiosis in insects can arise from a combination of stochastic and deterministic mechanisms, such as the dispersal limitations of microbes, codiversification between symbionts and hosts, and the filtering of phylogenetically conserved host traits (incl., host immune system, diet, and physiological characteristics). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insects and Their Derived Products: Emerging Themes and Future Research Directions)
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