Potential applications of insect symbionts in biotechnology
Symbiotic interactions between insects and microorganisms are widespread in nature and are often the source of ecological innovations. In addition to supplementing their host with essential nutrients, microbial symbionts can produce enzymes that help degrade their food source as well as small molecu...
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Springer Berlin Heidelberg
2015
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| Online Access: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4737797/ |
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pubmed-47377972016-02-09 Potential applications of insect symbionts in biotechnology Berasategui, Aileen Shukla, Shantanu Salem, Hassan Kaltenpoth, Martin Mini-Review Symbiotic interactions between insects and microorganisms are widespread in nature and are often the source of ecological innovations. In addition to supplementing their host with essential nutrients, microbial symbionts can produce enzymes that help degrade their food source as well as small molecules that defend against pathogens, parasites, and predators. As such, the study of insect ecology and symbiosis represents an important source of chemical compounds and enzymes with potential biotechnological value. In addition, the knowledge on insect symbiosis can provide novel avenues for the control of agricultural pest insects and vectors of human diseases, through targeted manipulation of the symbionts or the host-symbiont associations. Here, we discuss different insect-microbe interactions that can be exploited for insect pest and human disease control, as well as in human medicine and industrial processes. Our aim is to raise awareness that insect symbionts can be interesting sources of biotechnological applications and that knowledge on insect ecology can guide targeted efforts to discover microorganisms of applied value. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2015-12-14 2016 /pmc/articles/PMC4737797/ /pubmed/26659224 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-7186-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2015 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
| repository_type |
Open Access Journal |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
US National Center for Biotechnology Information |
| building |
NCBI PubMed |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Berasategui, Aileen Shukla, Shantanu Salem, Hassan Kaltenpoth, Martin |
| spellingShingle |
Berasategui, Aileen Shukla, Shantanu Salem, Hassan Kaltenpoth, Martin Potential applications of insect symbionts in biotechnology |
| author_facet |
Berasategui, Aileen Shukla, Shantanu Salem, Hassan Kaltenpoth, Martin |
| author_sort |
Berasategui, Aileen |
| title |
Potential applications of insect symbionts in biotechnology |
| title_short |
Potential applications of insect symbionts in biotechnology |
| title_full |
Potential applications of insect symbionts in biotechnology |
| title_fullStr |
Potential applications of insect symbionts in biotechnology |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Potential applications of insect symbionts in biotechnology |
| title_sort |
potential applications of insect symbionts in biotechnology |
| description |
Symbiotic interactions between insects and microorganisms are widespread in nature and are often the source of ecological innovations. In addition to supplementing their host with essential nutrients, microbial symbionts can produce enzymes that help degrade their food source as well as small molecules that defend against pathogens, parasites, and predators. As such, the study of insect ecology and symbiosis represents an important source of chemical compounds and enzymes with potential biotechnological value. In addition, the knowledge on insect symbiosis can provide novel avenues for the control of agricultural pest insects and vectors of human diseases, through targeted manipulation of the symbionts or the host-symbiont associations. Here, we discuss different insect-microbe interactions that can be exploited for insect pest and human disease control, as well as in human medicine and industrial processes. Our aim is to raise awareness that insect symbionts can be interesting sources of biotechnological applications and that knowledge on insect ecology can guide targeted efforts to discover microorganisms of applied value. |
| publisher |
Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
| publishDate |
2015 |
| url |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4737797/ |
| _version_ |
1613532529813356544 |