ArticlePloS one2015
Potential of the Desert Locust Schistocerca gregaria (Orthoptera: Acrididae) as an Unconventional Source of Dietary and Therapeutic Sterols.
Article in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 70 citations in OpenAlex.
- Antioxidant Potential of Schistocerca gregaria (Orthoptera: Acrididae) Extract: HPLC Analysis, Molecular Docking, and Bioassays.Chemistry & biodiversity · 2026Article
- GC-MS-Based Comparative Analysis of Compounds in Host Plants and Insect Gut Extracts.Metabolites · 2026Article
- Insects on the Plate: Nutritional Benefits, Health Impacts, and Market Dynamics.Current protein & peptide science · 2026Review
- Potential health benefits of insect bioactive metabolites and consumer attitudes towards edible insects.NPJ science of food · 2025Review
- Desert locust (Applied food research · 2025Article
- Edible caterpillars (Future foods : a dedicated journal for sustainability in food science · 2024Article
- Research Progress and Production Status of Edible Insects as Food in China.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Physicochemical properties of edible cricket oils: Implications for use in pharmaceutical and food industries.Future foods : a dedicated journal for sustainability in food science · 2024Article
- Unravelling the nutritional and health benefits of marketable winged termites (Macrotermes spp.) as sustainable food sources in Africa.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Article
- Beneficial sterols in selected edible insects and their associated antibacterial activities.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Bioactive Compounds and Antioxidant Composition of Nut Bars with Addition of Various Edible Insect Flours.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Insects as food and medicine: a sustainable solution for global health and environmental challenges.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Review
- Indigenous knowledge system associated with the uses of insects for therapeutic or medicinal purposes in two main provinces of Burkina Faso, West Africa.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2022Article
- Cultural significance of locusts, grasshoppers, and crickets in sub-Saharan Africa.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2022Review
- An Overview of Antimicrobial Compounds from African Edible Insects and Their Associated Microbiota.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Benefits and Challenges in the Incorporation of Insects in Food Products.Frontiers in nutrition · 2021Review
- Article
- Gastrointestinally Digested Protein from the InsectNutrients · 2020Article
- Chemistry and Sensory Characterization of a Bakery Product Prepared with Oils from African Edible Insects.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Insects are increasingly being recognized not only as a source of food to feed the ever growing world population but also as potential sources of new products and therapeutic agents, among which are sterols. In this study, we sought to profile sterols and their derivatives present in the desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria, focusing on those with potential importance as dietary and therapeutic components for humans. Using coupled gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), we analyzed and compared the quantities of sterols in the different sections of the gut and tissues of the locust. In the gut, we identified 34 sterols which showed a patchy distribution, but with the highest composition in the foregut (55%) followed by midgut (31%) and hindgut (14%). Fed ad libitum on wheat seedlings, five sterols unique to the insect were detected. These sterols were identified as 7-dehydrocholesterol, desmosterol, fucosterol, (3β, 5α) cholesta-8, 14, 24-trien-3-ol, 4, 4-dimethyl, and (3β, 20R) cholesta-5, 24-dien-3, 20-diol with the first three having known health benefits in humans. Incubation of the fore-, mid- and hindgut with cholesterol-[4-13C] yielded eight derivatives, three of these were detected in the gut of the desert locust after it had consumed the vegetative diet but were not detected in the diet. Our study shows that the desert locust ingests phytosterols from a vegetative diet and, amplifies and metabolizes them into derivatives with potential salutary benefits and we discuss our findings in this context.
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