Differentiations of Chitin Content and Surface Morphologies of Chitins Extracted from Male and Female Grasshopper Species

Abstract

In this study, we used Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), elemental analysis (EA), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffractometry (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to investigate chitin structure isolated from both sexes of four grasshopper species. FT-IR, EA, XRD, and TGA showed that the chitin was in the alpha form. With respect to gender, two main differences were observed. First, we observed that the quantity of chitin was greater in males than in females and the dry weight of chitin between species ranged from 4.71% to 11.84%. Second, using SEM, we observed that the male chitin surface structure contained 25 – 90nm wide nanofibers and 90 – 250 nm nanopores, while no pores or nanofibers were observed in the chitin surface structure of the majority of females (nanofibers were observed only in M. desertus females). In contrast, the elemental analysis, thermal properties, and crystalline index values for chitin were similar in males and females. Also, we carried out enzymatic digestion of the isolated chitins using commercial chitinase from Streptomyces griseus. We observed that there were no big differences in digestion rate of the chitins from both sexes and commercial chitin. The digestion rates were for grasshoppers’ chitins; 88.45–95.48% and for commercial chitin; 94.95%.

Chitin and chitosan from Brazilian Atlantic Coast: Isolation, characterization and antibacterial activity

“…1C shows the effect of concentrations of hydrochloric acid on the yield percent during the treatment of the shrimp shell under different time. It is obviously clear that, the yield percentage decreased with increasing the concentration of hydrochloric acid; this is due to the removal higher percentage of mineral salts (calcium carbonate and/or phosphate) during the treatment [8]. The yield percentage decreased rapidly in the first 1 h then the rate became constant as the composition of minerals decreased with demineralization time.…”

“…Shrimp shell contains about 25-40% of minerals and the huge amount of these minerals are calcium carbonate and calcium phosphate [8,47]. Hydrochloric acid was used as a reagent in demineralization step in order to remove the minerals (as calcium carbonate) from the shell.…”

“…Alkaline solution from sodium hydroxide was used to remove the proteins, lipids and pigments from the crawfish shell [8,73]. Effect of particle sizes and the time of chemical deproteinization process influence the properties of the chitin product.…”

“…Chitin is one of the most abundant amino polysaccharides found Q3 in nature next to cellulose; it has a wide variety of sources as exoskeleton of crustacean (crab, shrimp and crawfish, Oniscus asellus) [1][2][3][4], insect cuticles (Melolontha melolontha) [3], Orthoptera species [5,6], wings of cockroach [7], grasshopper species [8], medicinal fungus [9], larvae and adult Colorado potato beetle [10], aquatic invertebrates [11], bat guano [12], resting eggs of Daphnia longispina [13], spider species [14], Daphnia magna resting eggs [15], and cell wall of fungi and in the green algae. The chemical structure of chitin (C 8 H 13 O 5 N) n is similar to cellulose, having one hydroxyl group on each monomer substituted with an acetyl amine groups.…”

Three-dimensional chitin rings from body segments of a pet diplopod species: Characterization and protein interaction studies

“…Normally, chitin is found as fibrous [2,43] and porous structures associated with proteins and some minerals in many organisms [44]. Pores on the surface of chitin isolates are desirable for many applications, so in some cases chemical treatments are employed to create pores on the surface [45,46].…”