Tufts University bioengineers discover secret of spider, silkworm fiber strength
...the previous lack of understanding how spiders and silkworm process the silk. The Tufts team has identified the way that spiders and silkworms control the solubility, concentration and structure of the proteins in their glands that spin the silk. According to Kaplan, silk proteins are organized into pseudo-mi...Insect antibiotics Resistance is futile!
...discovered in the Cecropia moth, also known as the silkworm moth, the largest moth in North America. Since insects do not have an immune system as humans do, they rely on polypeptide antibiotics like Cecropin A to fight off infections. These proteins are highly selective they readily kill bacteria, but are h...Lobster sniffing: how lobsters' hairy noses capture smells from the sea
...niversity of Kansas in Lawrence, described how the silkworm moth uses its wings to fan odors efficiently through its feathery antennae. Koehl and her UC Berkeley colleagues also study the hairy noses of crabs and mantis shrimp. These feathery or hairy structures are used for more than smelling. Many animals h...Technology patented to create Pierces disease-resistant grapevines
...those found in a variety of organisms, such as the silkworm larvae, which uses genes to kill bacteria and fungi, Gray said. In laboratory conditions, the protein produced by the gene kills the Pierces disease bacterium. The successful transfer of the gene into Thompson Seedless marked the first time a commerc...Dyed In The Silkworm: Researchers Develop Novel Way To Produce Colored Silk
...s group tookan approach in which they infected the silkworm larvae with a geneticallyengineered insect virus that carried an altered version of a silk protein. Theyfused the gene encoding the light chain of the fibroin protein -- a major proteincomponent of silk -- to the gene encoding the green fluorescent p...