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。养殖昆虫有可能持续满足世界对蛋白质日益增长的需求，同时解决废物处理问题。因此，世界各地的公司都在养殖黑兵蝇（BSF, Hermetia illucens），一种用于固体废物处理的工业昆虫。通过在食物垃圾上饲养幼虫，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，并且具有适合生物柴油的脂肪特征-不同的新产业正在等待。目前，缺乏为这些部门创造优化的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加它们的抗干燥性？在这个项目中，我们将利用我们的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性状发展的关键调节因子。然后，我们将针对这些基因的启动子区域设计CRISPR/Cas9靶向诱变的构建体，重点关注一个或两个特征。从这些实验中获得的通过表型分析和RNAseq的读数将立即反馈到我们的网络模型中。这个项目的最终目标是创造一条通往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.