Engineering industrially relevant traits in the farmed insect Hermetia illucens

全球粮食供应面临气候变化和人口增长的双重挑战。养殖的昆虫有潜力可持续地满足世界对蛋白质日益增长的需求，同时解决其废物处理问题。因此，世界各地的公司都在养殖黑军蝇(BSF，Hermetia IlLucens)，这是一种用于固体废物处理的工业昆虫。通过用食物垃圾饲养幼虫，也有可能产生可持续的蛋白质来源。此外，幼虫是抗菌肽的来源，并且有适合生物柴油的脂肪分布--不同的新行业正在等待。目前，缺乏创造针对每个部门优化的BSF菌株的遗传资源。我们如何增加(或减少)他们的脂肪与蛋白质的比例？我们如何提高甲壳素的产量或增强其抗干性？在这个项目中，我们将利用OUT行业合作伙伴的内部基因组资源进行拓扑网络分析，这将使我们能够确定可能推动特定BSF特征发展的关键调控因素。集中在一个或两个特征，然后我们将设计CRISPR/Cas9靶向突变这些基因的启动子区域的构建体。从这些实验中获得的表型读数和RNAseq将立即反馈到我们的网络模型中。该项目的最终目标是创造一条通向更好的工业昆虫的途径。

The global food supply faces the dual challenge of climate change and a growing human population. Farmed insects have the potential to sustainably satisfy the world's growing demand for protein whilst simultaneously tackling it's waste processing problems. As a result, companies worldwide are farming the black soldier fly (BSF, Hermetia illucens) an industrial insect that is used for solid waste processing. By rearing the larvae on food waste, it is also possible to produce a sustainable protein source. Furthermore, larvae are a source of antimicrobial peptides and have a fat profile suitable for biodiesel - different new industries are lying in wait. Currently, genetic resources to create BSF strains optimized for each of these sectors are lacking. How do we increase (or decrease) their fat to protein ratio? How do we enhance chitin production or increase their dessication resistance? In this project we will in-house genomic resources of out industry partner to perform topological network analysis which will allow us to identify key regulators that are likely to drive development of particular BSF traits. Focussing on one or two traits we will then design constructs for CRISPR/Cas9 targeted mutagenesis of promoter regions of these genes. The read-out via phenotyping and RNAseq obtained from these experiments will be immediately fed back into our network model. The project is ultimately aimed at generating a pathway towards better industrial insects.