Evaluation of the metabolic effects of insect meal from Tenebrio molitor L. in the liver of growing pigs by transcriptomics

The hypothesis was tested that insect meal (IM) as protein source influences intermediary metabolism of growing pigs. To test this, 5-week-old crossbreed pigs were randomly assigned to 3 groups of 10 pigs each with similar body weights (BW) and fed isonitrogenous diets either without (CON) or with 5 % IM (IM5) or 10 % IM (IM10) from Tenebrio molitor L. for 4 weeks and liver was analyzed using transcriptomics. Transcriptomics of the liver revealed a total of 166 transcripts differentially expressed between IM10 and CON. For microarray analysis, n = 6 RNA samples each of the group CON, group IM5 and group IM10 were used for hybridization to the Affymetrix GeneChip Porcine Gene 1.0 Sense Target array.