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Plastics shape the black soldier fly larvae gut microbiome and select for biodegrading functions

Microbiome 2023 59 citations ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count. Score: 50 ? 0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.

Francesca De Filippis, Gianluca Tettamanti, Daniele Bruno, M. Bonelli, Daniele Bruno, Daniele Bruno, Silvia Caccia Daniele Bruno, Giuseppina Sequino, Giuseppina Sequino, Aurora Montali, Gianluca Tettamanti, Marcella Reguzzoni, Edoardo Pasolli, Morena Casartelli, Davide Savy, Silvana Cangemi, Silvana Cangemi, Gianluca Tettamanti, Vincenza Cozzolino, Gianluca Tettamanti, Danilo Ercolini, Morena Casartelli, Silvia Caccia

Summary

Researchers found that black soldier fly larvae can adapt their gut microbiome to digest a wide range of plastics, shifting their microbial communities to favor biodegrading functions. This suggests the insects could serve as living incubators for discovering new plastic-breaking enzymes for industrial cleanup applications.

In addition to highlighting that the astonishing plasticity of the microbiota composition of BSF larvae is associated with functional shifts in the insect microbiome, the present work sets the stage for exploiting BSF larvae as "bioincubators" to isolate microbial strains and enzymes for the development of innovative plastic biodegradation strategies. However, most importantly, the larvae constitute a source of enzymes to be evolved and valorized by pioneering synthetic biology approaches. Video Abstract.

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