›› 2011, Vol. 54 ›› Issue (2): 197-210.doi:

• RESEARCH PAPERS • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Progress and application prospect of transgenic silkworm

ZHOU Qi-Sheng, YU Qi, LIU Qing-Xin   

  • Online:2011-02-20 Published:2011-03-10

Abstract: Transgenic silkworm, Bombyx mori was generated by transferring foreign genes to its chromosome with molecular biological techniques and creating new traits and products, which could keep the generation and reflect the function of foreign genes with high expression. Recent studies showed that the piggyBac was the commonly used vector and the green fluorescent protein gene (GFP) was the commonly used reporter gene in the transgenic silkworm technology, and the success rate of the transgenic silkworm by microinjection was up to 40%. Through using transgenic silkworm technology, the function of BmFtz-F1,BmBLOS2, ETH and CecB genes of silkworm had been illuminated; new silkworm breeds with superior quality, high degree of fine fiber, high tensile strength, high flexibility, different fluorescences, and BmNPV resistance or Micrococcus luteus resistance had been established; and many biologically active proteins, vaccine and special biological materials, such as human type Ⅲ procollagen, human basic fibroblast growth factor, recombinant human serum albumin, human brain-derived neurotrophic factor, human insulin like growth factor I, cat interferon and monoclonal antibody, had been produced. With the further study of transgenic technology, transgenic silkworm products will have a broad application prospect in national defense, military industry, aerospace, medicine and so on.

Key words: Bombyx mori, transgene, vector, reporter gene, bioreactor