Antimicrobial peptide gene expression and the microbiome in Black Soldier Fly.

However, upon extracting NMDS axes as univariate proxy variables for representing microbiome dissimilarity between larval gut samples, a significant Spearman correlation for a relationship between I Cec2 i expression and NMDS axis 1 ( = -0.769, I P i = 0.005) was found. Dear Editor, The black soldier fly (BSF) ( I Hermetia illucens i Linnaeus, 1758) is an important insect in the sustainable agriculture sector that has attracted much interest over the last few years. I Cec2 i gene regulation constitutes a plausible host-related mechanism underlying the diet-dependent differentiation of BSF larval gut communities that is associated with the abundance of specific bacterial taxa, and seemingly independent from host genetics and genetic-by-diet interactions. The BSF contains the largest number of unique antimicrobial peptide (AMP) genes amongst insects (Zhan I et al. i , [18]) and these peptides have also been advocated as alternative antibiotics, in light of growing antimicrobial resistant microorganisms (Tonk & Vilcinckas, 2017). [Extracted from the article]