Comprehensive evaluation of the metabolic effects of insect meal from Tenebrio molitor L. in growing pigs by transcriptomics, metabolomics and lipidomics

The hypothesis was tested that insect meal (IM) as protein source influences intermediary metabolism of growing pigs. To test this, 30 male, 5-week-old crossbred 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 L. for 4 weeks and key metabolic tissues (liver, muscle, plasma) were analyzed using omics-techniques. Most performance parameters did not differ across the groups, whereas ileal digestibilities of most amino acids were 6.7 to 15.6%-units lower in IM10 than in CON ( < 0.05). Transcriptomics of liver and skeletal muscle revealed a total of 166 and 198, respectively, transcripts differentially expressed between IM10 and CON (