Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Alimentari e Microbiologiche, Università degli Studi di Milano, 20133 Milan, Italy.
Microb Biotechnol. 2012 May;5(3):307-17. doi: 10.1111/j.1751-7915.2011.00312.x. Epub 2011 Nov 22.
Microorganisms establish with their animal hosts close interactions. They are involved in many aspects of the host life, physiology and evolution, including nutrition, reproduction, immune homeostasis, defence and speciation. Thus, the manipulation and the exploitation the microbiota could result in important practical applications for the development of strategies for the management of insect-related problems. This approach, defined as 'Microbial Resource Management' (MRM), has been applied successfully in various environments and ecosystems, as wastewater treatments, prebiotics in humans, anaerobic digestion and so on. MRM foresees the proper management of the microbial resource present in a given ecosystem in order to solve practical problems through the use of microorganisms. In this review we present an interesting field for application for MRM concept, i.e. the microbial communities associated with arthropods and nematodes. Several examples related to this field of applications are presented. Insect microbiota can be manipulated: (i) to control insect pests for agriculture; (ii) to control pathogens transmitted by insects to humans, animals and plants; (iii) to protect beneficial insects from diseases and stresses. Besides, we prospect further studies aimed to verify, improve and apply MRM by using the insect-symbiont ecosystem as a model.
微生物与其动物宿主建立密切的相互作用。它们参与宿主生活、生理和进化的许多方面，包括营养、繁殖、免疫稳态、防御和物种形成。因此，操纵和利用微生物群可能会为开发与昆虫相关问题的管理策略带来重要的实际应用。这种方法被定义为“微生物资源管理”（MRM），已成功应用于各种环境和生态系统，如废水处理、人类的益生元、厌氧消化等。MRM 预见了对给定生态系统中存在的微生物资源的适当管理，以便通过使用微生物来解决实际问题。在这篇综述中，我们提出了一个有趣的 MRM 概念应用领域，即与节肢动物和线虫相关的微生物群落。介绍了几个与该应用领域相关的实例。昆虫微生物群可以被操纵：（i）控制农业害虫；（ii）控制昆虫传播给人类、动物和植物的病原体；（iii）保护有益昆虫免受疾病和压力的影响。此外，我们期望进一步研究旨在通过使用昆虫共生体生态系统作为模型来验证、改进和应用 MRM。
