Comparative proteome profiling of egg, larva and adult Hermetia illucens (Diptera: Stratiomyidae)

The black soldier fly (BSF), Hermetia illucens, is the insect with the greatest potential to contribute to sustainable human development because of its nutritional characteristics, low environmental impact, and bioremediation ability. In this study, we characterized and quantified the proteome of three BSF stages: egg, larva, and adult, using bottom-up proteomics. A total of 6,116 proteins were identified across all BSF developmental stages. Processes related to information processing, such as chromatin structure, replication, transcription, translation, and the cell cycle, were notably more abundant in eggs than in larvae and adults. Nevertheless, metabolic processes, such as amino acid, carbohydrate, lipid, and nucleotide metabolism, were more abundant in larvae and adults than in eggs. The quantitative analysis revealed four expression clusters of proteins involved in amino acid transport and metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism, coenzyme transport and metabolism, energy production, inorganic ion transport and metabolism, lipid metabolism, posttranscriptional modification and translation. Furthermore, the detection of xenobiotic detoxification proteins, cytochromes, coesterases, and GSTs, suggests that BSF can metabolize xenobiotics. This overview of the BSF proteome provided information for further investigations as biotechnological or practical applications based on newly identified detoxification enzymes, such as enhancing rearing practices with new diet formulations or bioremediation wastes.