Microbial nutrient factories in insects on extreme diets

Abstract

Insects are renowned for their capacity to specialize on a wide diversity of diets, many of which are nutrient-poor or nutritionally unbalanced. For example, various insects feed through the life cycle on wood, vertebrate blood, plant sap and other extreme diets that are variously deficient in vitamins, sterols and essential amino acids. These insects circumvent the fundamental “rules” of animal nutrition because they possess symbiotic microorganisms that overproduce the limiting dietary nutrients. Many associations between insects and microorganisms are evolutionarily ancient and involve the exquisite coevolution of metabolic function in the insect and microbial partners, including the restructuring of microbial metabolism as nutrient factories for the host ( Fig. 1 ). These insects include major pests and vectors of animal, human and crop disease agents. Their dependence on specific microorganisms offers novel routes for the control of these globally important insect pests.