Absence of microbiome triggers extensive changes in the transcriptional profile of Hermetia illucens during larval ontogeny
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Black soldier fly larvae (BSF, Hermetia illucens) have gained much attention for their industrial use as biowaste recyclers and as a new source of animal proteins. The functional effect that microbiota has on insect health and growth performance remains largely unknown. This study clarifies the role of microbiota in BSF ontogeny by investigating the differential genomic expression of BSF larvae in axenic conditions (i.e., germfree) relative to non-axenic (conventional) conditions. We used RNA-seq to measure differentially expressed transcripts between axenic and conventional condition using DESeq2 at day 4, 12 and 20 post-hatching. Gene expression was significantly up or down-regulated for 2476 transcripts mapped in gene ontology functions, and axenic larvae exhibited higher rate of down-regulated functions. Up-regulated microbiota-dependant transcriptional gene modules included the immune system, the lipid metabolism, and the nervous system. Expression profile showed a shift in late larvae (day 12 and 20), exposing a significant temporal effect on gene expression. These results provide the first evidence of host functional genes regulated by microbiota in the BSF larva, further demonstrating the importance of host-microbiota interactions on host ontology and health. These results open the door to optimization of zootechnical properties in alternative animal protein production, biowaste revalorization and recycling.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".