Synthesis of selenium conjugated insects protein in Hermetia illucens larvae as poultry feed.
David Kurniawan (a), Eko Widodo (a), Agus Susilo (a), and Osfar Sjofjan (a*)

a) Faculty of Animal Science, Universitas Brawijaya, Malang 65145, Indonesia
*osfar[at]ub.ac.id


Abstract

Selenium (Se) is an essential trace element for human health and livestock growth. The element can be supplemented to feed in inorganic or organic Se forms, where the chemical form in the diet affects the accumulation of Se in animal tissues. Insects are known to be natural bio-accumulators of various nutrients, but research on the capacity of insects to be bio-enriched with Se in feed is still limited. The aims of this study were to synthesize Se-enriched insects and examine how effectively they can deliver selenium to black soldier fly (BSF, Hermetia illucens) larvae. In this study, BSF larvae were reared on different substrates with four levels of dietary sodium selenite supplementation (0, 100, 200 and 400 mg/kg). BSF larvae were analyzed for biomass yield, nutritional value and Se content. We revealed that selenium content in the fortified BSF larvae was several orders of magnitude higher than in the unfortified ones. There were significant differences between doses of selenium delivered to BSF larvae by different selenium compounds. Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) analysis of these BSF larvae has shown that there was a higher accumulation of total selenium content in the treated samples (348 mg Se/g DW) as compared to control (0.64 mg Se/g DW). Organic Se-enriched can with stand as high as 400 mg sodium selenite without compromising its growth pattern and BSF larvae biomass yield and nutritional value. Collectively, the current study proposes that, Se-enriched BSF larvae with high organic Se content can serve as selenium feed additives.

Keywords: Organic Selenium, Nutritional Value, Feed Additive

Topic: Animal Nutrition

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