Impact of Edible Insect Polysaccharides on Mouse Gut Microbiota: A Study on White-Spotted Flower Chafer Larva () and Silkworm Pupa ().
Joon-Ha Lee, Hyojung Son, Sathiyamoorthy Subramaniyam, Hyun-Jung Lim, Sohyun Park, Ra-Yeong Choi, In-Woo Kim, Minchul Seo, Hae-Yong Kweon, Yongsoon Kim, Seong-Wan Kim, Jong-Soon Choi, Younhee Shin
Author Information
Joon-Ha Lee: Department of Agricultural Biology, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Wanju 55365, Republic of Korea. ORCID
Hyojung Son: Research and Development Center, Insilicogen Inc., Yongin 16954, Republic of Korea.
Sathiyamoorthy Subramaniyam: Research and Development Center, Insilicogen Inc., Yongin 16954, Republic of Korea.
Hyun-Jung Lim: Department of Agricultural Biology, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Wanju 55365, Republic of Korea.
Sohyun Park: Department of Agricultural Biology, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Wanju 55365, Republic of Korea.
Ra-Yeong Choi: Department of Agricultural Biology, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Wanju 55365, Republic of Korea.
In-Woo Kim: Department of Agricultural Biology, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Wanju 55365, Republic of Korea.
Minchul Seo: Department of Agricultural Biology, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Wanju 55365, Republic of Korea. ORCID
Hae-Yong Kweon: Department of Agricultural Biology, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Wanju 55365, Republic of Korea.
Yongsoon Kim: Department of Agricultural Biology, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Wanju 55365, Republic of Korea.
Seong-Wan Kim: Department of Agricultural Biology, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Wanju 55365, Republic of Korea.
Jong-Soon Choi: Department of Family Medicine, College of Medicine, Kosin University, Busan 49267, Republic of Korea.
Younhee Shin: Research and Development Center, Insilicogen Inc., Yongin 16954, Republic of Korea. ORCID
The increasing global population and the environmental consequences of meat consumption have led to the exploration of alternative sources of protein. Edible insects have gained attention as a sustainable and nutritionally rich meat alternative. We investigated the effects of two commonly consumed insects, larva and pupa, on beneficial gut microbiota growth, using whole 16s metagenome sequencing to assess diet-associated changes. Seven-week-old female C57BL/6J mice were administered the edible insects, along with fracto-oligosaccharide (FOS) as a positive control and sham (phosphate buffer saline (PBS)) as a negative control, to assess the relative abundance of insect-diet-associated gut microbes. In total, 567 genera and 470 species were observed, and among these, 15 bacterial genera were differentially abundant in all three groups. These results show that among the two insects, pupa polysaccharides have a greater ability to regulate beneficial probiotics and next-generation probiotics. In particular, , which has promising effects on the gastrointestinal tracts of humans and animals, was significantly enriched in both larva and pupa polysaccharides, similar to fracto-oligosaccharide. The results suggest that the consumption of these insects, particularly polysaccharides, can enhance the growth of beneficial gut microbes, potentially leading to improved overall health in healthy populations.
