Comparative proteome profiling of Egg, Larva and Adult of Hermetia illucens (Diptera: Stratiomyidae)

The black soldier fly (BSF), Hermetia illucens, is the insect with the greater potential to contribute to sustainable human development due to its nutritional characteristics, low environmental impact, or bioremediation ability. This study characterized and quantified the proteome of three stages of BSF: Egg, Larva, and Adult, using a Bottom-Up Proteomics strategy. A total of 6,116 proteins were identified across all BSF development stages. The processes related to Information processing, like Chromatin structure, Replication, Transcription, Translation, and Cell cycle, were notably more abundant in Egg than Larva and Adult. Still, the metabolic processes, like Amino acid, Carbohy-drate, Lipid, and Nucleotide metabolism, were more abundant in Larva and Adult than Egg. The quantitative analysis revealed four expression clusters of proteins that participate in amino acid transport and metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism, coenzyme transport and metabolism, energy production, inorganic ion transport and metabolism, lipid metabolism, posttranscriptional modi-fication and translation. Furthermore, the detection of xenobiotic detoxification proteins belonging to P450s, esterases, and GSTs in BSF suggests detoxification of exogenous molecules. The overview of the BSF proteome provided information for further investigations as biotechnological applica-tions based on newly identified detoxification enzymes or practical applications such as enhancing rearing practices with new diet formulations or bioremediation wastes.