Research Highlights FY 2006-2010
2008
Production of high quality silks having
different fluorescent colors by transgenic
silkworms
Toshiki TAMURA1, Tetsuya IIZUKA1, Hideki SEZUTSU1, Ken-ichiro
TATEMATSU1, Isao KOBAYASHI1, Masayuki YONEMURA1, Keiro
UCHINO1, Katsura KOJIMA1, Hiroaki MACHII1, Chihiro TAKABAYASHI1,
Katsushige YAMADA2, Hiroyuki KURIHARA2, Tetsuro ASAKURA3,
Yasumoto NAKAZAWA3, Junji YAMAGUCHI4, Nobuo KUWABARA4,
Takashi NAKAMURA5, Kei YOSHII5, Atsushi MIYAWAKI6, Satoshi
KARASAWA7, Hatsumi KOBAYASHI7
Transgenic Silkworm Research Center, NIAS, 2 Toray Industries, Inc. 3 Tokyo
University of Agriculture and Technology, 4 Gunma Sericultural Technology
Center, 5 Textile Research Center of Gunma, 6 RIKEN, 7 Amalgaam, Ltd.
1
Sericulture in Japan has declined over the
past 20 years with reductions in is successively
reduce the amounts of annual cocoon
production and the numbers of the farmers
rearing the silkworms during 20 years. Thise
reduction has been is caused by the low prices
of the cocoons and raw silk. To promote the
sericulture Iin Japan, it was thought to be
necessary to develop new silks and cocoons
that couldcan sell for much higher prices. than
those of the ordinal one. In addition, the new
silks and the cocoons would be distinguished
can be discriminated from the cocoons and silks
available from made by the foreign countries
such as, like China, Brazil, and India etc.
The Recently, National Institute of
Agrobiological Sciences have recently developed
been established the technology for making a
transgenic silkworms and for the systems for
the expressing of the transgenic. By using this
technology, the artificially synthesized gene can
be introduced into the silkworm and expressed
in the silk gland. We applied the method for the
production of high quality of recombinant silks,
and found that the characteristics of the silk can
be modified by introducing introduction of an
artificial silk gene.
In this topic, we report the production
of large amounts of recombinant silk and
attempts to produce higher quality fabrics
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using recombinant silks. We first generated
transgenic silkworms that produce silks having
interesting green, red or orange fluorescence
characteristics Fig. 1. To increase the
production of fluorescent silk, these strains
were back-crossed with the Japanese and
Chinese parent races with selection in the
successive generations. We generated the
silkworms produced the high quality of the
recombinant silks having different characters.
The most interesting silk possesses the
fluorescence of the green, red and orange
color. We also developed a transgenic strain
producing The very thin and strong silk by
direct introduction of the artificial gene for thin
silk into the thin silk race Hachuring . We
then reared a large number of the silkworms
and harvested a large amount of cocoons
Fig. 1. This is also turned out to be produced
by the transgenic silkworm. The Silk with a
cell-adhesive character is also was produced by
the same method. In this topic we report the
production of large amounts of recombinant silk
and attempted to produce the higher quality of
fabrics using the recombinant silks.
We first generated the transgenic silkworms
that produce the silks having the green, red
and orange fluorescence or very thin fiber. The
strains producing larger amount of the silks
with the fluorescence were bred by back cross
Research Highlights FY 2006-2010
with Japanese and Chinese parent races and by
the selection in the successive generations. The
silkworm strain for the thin silk was performed
by the direct introduction of the artificial
gene for making the thin silk into the thin silk
race. Then, we reared a large numbers of the
silkworms and harvested large amounts of
cocoonsFig. 1.
It was known that the fluorescence color of
the silk was lost is loosed when the silk was
reeled by the usual hot steam and water an
ordinal method. We also investigated different
the reeling methods using lower temperature so
that of the cocoon without loosing the modified
characters could be retained and as a result, we
found that the drying and boiling of the cocoons
at a lower temperature and the use of, a
vacuum treatment and use of specific reagents
were are required applicable for the reeling.
White light
Fluorescence
As a result of this innovative, we innovated
the technology, to reel the recombinant silk
could be reeled and successfully to produce
large amounts of silks retaining remained the
fluorescence colorFig. 1as well as and the
character of very thin fiber characteristic.
Using these silks, we performed the production
of the textile fabrics forknit dresses, jackets
and shawlsas shown in Fig. 2 and the interior
accessories such aslampshades and tapestries
as shown in Fig. 2.
From these studies, results, we concluded
that the production of high quality silks is
possible using the newly developed to use the
technology developed and that the recombinant
silks produced by the transgenic silkworms
may open the new fieled in Japanese sericulture
and contribute to the increase in of the silk
production.
White light
Fluorescence
Fig. 1 The cocoons and silk made from the transgenic silkworms introduced green (upper) or
red (lower) fluorecence gene
White light
Fluorescence
Fig. 2 Womans wears made by the recombinant silk with the fluorescent colors
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