10.5061/DRYAD.TB2RBP026
Nurfikari, Azkia
0000-0002-7592-2099
Netherlands Institute of Ecology
de Boer, Wietse
Netherlands Institute of Ecology
Liquid chromatography measurement obtained from the chitin extracts of
insect exuviae
Dryad
dataset
2021
FOS: Agricultural biotechnology
Dutch Research Council
https://ror.org/04jsz6e67
ALWGK.2016.010
NIOO-KNAW
2021-12-21T00:00:00Z
2021-12-21T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2021.79569
24633 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Chitin, a biopolymer present in fungi and arthropods, is a compound of
interest for various applications, such as in the agricultural and medical
fields. With the recently growing interest in the development of insect
farming, the availability of chitin-containing residual streams,
particularly the molting skins (exuviae), is expected to increase in the
near future. For application purposes, accurate quantification of chitin
in these insect sources is essential. Previous studies on chitin
extraction and quantification often overlooked the purity of the extracted
chitin, making the outcomes inconsistent and prone to overestimation. The
present study aims to determine chitin content in the exuviae of three
insect species mass-reared worldwide: black soldier fly (BSF), mealworm,
and house cricket. Chitin was chemically extracted using acid and alkali
treatments to remove minerals and proteins. The purity of extracted chitin
was evaluated by hydrolyzing the chitin into glucosamine, followed by
quantitative determination of the latter using two liquid chromatography
methods: electrochemical detection (ECD) and tandem mass spectrometry
(MS/MS). Both methods proved accurate and precise, without the need for
labor-intensive derivatization steps. Pearson’s correlation and
Bland-Altman plots showed that the glucosamine determination results
obtained by the two methods were comparable, and there is no consistent
bias of one approach vs. the other. The chitin content in extracted
residues ranged between 7.9 and 18.5%, with the highest amount found in
BSF puparium. In summary, the study demonstrated that (1) the residual
streams of the insect farming industry have a great potential for
utilization as an alternative chitin source, and (2) both LC-ECD and
LC-MS/MS are reliable for the quantitative determination of glucosamine in
insect chitin.
The amount of hydrolyzed chitin from biological samples was calculated
according to the formulation described by D’Hondt et al. (2020) by taking
into account the concentration of chitin constituents and the weight of
the extracted insect chitin from each biological source. Chromatographic
data were measured in triplicate and expressed as the mean ± standard
deviation.