Responses of physiological, microbiome and lipid metabolism to lignocellulose wastes in gut of yellow mealworm (Tenebrio molitor)

Xinrui Mao; Jiaming Li; Enqing Meng; Wenbiao Jin; Wei Han

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2024.130731

Responses of physiological, microbiome and lipid metabolism to lignocellulose wastes in gut of yellow mealworm (Tenebrio molitor)

Bioresour Technol. 2024 Apr 24:401:130731. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2024.130731. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Xinrui Mao¹, Jiaming Li², Enqing Meng¹, Wenbiao Jin³, Wei Han¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, Guangdong 518055, China.
² Shenzhen Branch, Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Agricultural Synthetic Biology, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, Guangdong 518055, China. Electronic address: jinwb@hit.edu.cn.

PMID: 38663637
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2024.130731

Abstract

There is limited research on physiological and degradation mechanisms of yellow mealworm, a novel organic waste converter, in processing lignocellulosic wastes. This study has selected two types of lignocellulosic wastes, distillers' grains (DG) and maize straw (MS), to feed yellow mealworms. This study investigated the effects of lignocellulosic wastes on the growth, antioxidant system, microbiome, and lipidome of yellow mealworms. The relative growth of lignocellulosic waste group was not significantly different from wheat bran. The antioxidant level was elevated in DG. MS was significantly enriched in cellulose-degrading bacteria in the gut and was accompanied by disturbances in lipid metabolism. The correlation coefficients were used to construct a network connecting diet, microbiota, and lipids. The correlation analysis indicated that two sphingolipids, hexylglyceramide and dihydroglyceramide, were strongly and positively linked with the dominating species. This study provides comprehensive information on physiological and mechanism of mealworms in process of treating lignocellulosic waste.

Keywords: Antioxidant; Bacterial community structure; Lipidome; Mealworms.