Mohan Kannan, Ganesan Abirami Ramu, Muralisankar Thirunavukkarasu, Jayakumar Rajarajeswaran, Sathishkumar Palanivel, Uthayakumar Venkatachalam, Chandirasekar Ramachandran, Revathi Nagarajan
PG and Research Department of Zoology, Sri Vasavi College, Erode, Tamil Nadu, 638 316, India.
School of Applied Sciences, College of Engineering, Science and Technology (CEST), Fiji National University, 5529, Fiji.
Trends Food Sci Technol. 2020 Nov;105:17-42. doi: 10.1016/j.tifs.2020.08.016. Epub 2020 Sep 4.
Insects are a living resource used for human nutrition, medicine, and industry. Several potential sources of proteins, peptides, and biopolymers, such as silk, chitin, and chitosan are utilized in industry and for biotechnology applications. Chitosan is an amino-polysaccharide derivative of chitin that consists of linear amino polysaccharides with d-glucosamine and N-acetyl-d-glucosamine units. Currently, the chief commercial sources of chitin and chitosan are crustacean shells that accumulate as a major waste product from the marine food industry. Existing chitin resources have some natural challenges, including insufficient supplies, seasonal availability, and environmental pollution. As an alternative, insects could be utilized as unconventional but feasible sources of chitin and chitosan.
This review focuses on the recent sources of insect chitin and chitosan, particularly from the Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Hymenoptera, Diptera, Hemiptera, Dictyoptera, and Odonata orders. In addition, the extraction methods and physicochemical characteristics are discussed. Insect chitin and chitosan have numerous biological activities and could be used for food, biomedical, and industrial applications.
Recently, the invasive and harmful effects of insect species causing severe damage in agricultural crops has led to great economic losses globally. These dangerous species serve as potential sources of chitin and are underutilized worldwide. The conclusion of the present study provides better insight into the conversion of insect waste-derived chitin into value-added products as an alternative chitin source to address food security related challenges.
昆虫是一种用于人类营养、医学和工业的生物资源。工业和生物技术应用中利用了几种潜在的蛋白质、肽和生物聚合物来源，如丝绸、几丁质和壳聚糖。壳聚糖是几丁质的氨基多糖衍生物，由具有d-葡萄糖胺和N-乙酰-d-葡萄糖胺单元的线性氨基多糖组成。目前，几丁质和壳聚糖的主要商业来源是甲壳类动物的外壳，这些外壳是海洋食品工业的主要废弃物。现有的几丁质资源存在一些天然挑战，包括供应不足、季节性供应和环境污染。作为一种替代方案，昆虫可被用作几丁质和壳聚糖的非常规但可行的来源。
本综述重点关注昆虫几丁质和壳聚糖的最新来源，特别是来自鳞翅目、鞘翅目、直翅目、膜翅目、双翅目、半翅目、蜚蠊目和蜻蜓目的昆虫。此外，还讨论了提取方法和理化特性。昆虫几丁质和壳聚糖具有多种生物活性，可用于食品、生物医学和工业应用。
最近，在农作物中造成严重损害的昆虫物种的入侵和有害影响在全球范围内导致了巨大的经济损失。这些危险物种是几丁质的潜在来源，在全球范围内未得到充分利用。本研究的结论为将昆虫废弃物衍生的几丁质转化为增值产品提供了更好的见解，作为一种替代几丁质来源，以应对与粮食安全相关的挑战。
