Candian Valentina, Tedeschi Rosemarie
Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, Forestali e Alimentari (DISAFA), University of Torino, Largo P. Braccini 2, 10095 Grugliasco, Italy.
Insects. 2023 Apr 4;14(4):359. doi: 10.3390/insects14040359.
Large-scale insect rearing can be subjected to microbial infections, leading to serious economic losses. When possible, the use of antibiotics is to be avoided for insects intended as feed or food and new strategies to preserve the health of the farmed insects are required. The effectiveness of insect immune system depends on several factors, including the nutritional composition of the diet. The possibility to modulate immune responses through the diet is currently a topic of great interest from an application point of view. We evaluated the effect of two different diets on the survival rate and gene expression of the antimicrobial peptide Tenecin 3 in uninfected and -infected L. larvae. A wheat bran diet, mixed 50% with brewers' spent grains, could positively influence the expression of Tenecin 3 gene when uninfected is allowed to develop on such a substrate from early larval stages. Even if, in our trial, the diet with added brewers' spent grains could not reduce the mortality of the larvae infected with , higher transcriptional levels of the antifungal peptide were observed in insects fed this diet, depending on the timing of diet administration.
大规模昆虫饲养可能会受到微生物感染，从而导致严重的经济损失。对于用作饲料或食物的昆虫，应尽可能避免使用抗生素，因此需要新的策略来维护养殖昆虫的健康。昆虫免疫系统的有效性取决于几个因素，包括饮食的营养成分。从应用角度来看，通过饮食调节免疫反应的可能性目前是一个备受关注的话题。我们评估了两种不同饮食对未感染和感染L.幼虫的抗菌肽Tenecin 3的存活率和基因表达的影响。当未感染的幼虫从早期幼虫阶段就在这种底物上发育时，一种与啤酒糟按50%混合的麦麸饮食可以对Tenecin 3基因的表达产生积极影响。即使在我们的试验中，添加了啤酒糟的饮食不能降低感染的幼虫的死亡率，但根据饮食投喂的时间，在食用这种饮食的昆虫中观察到了更高的抗真菌肽转录水平。
