Acute oral toxicity test of chemical compounds in silkworms

Silkworm fungal infection model for identification of virulence genes in pathogenic fungus and screening of novel antifungal drugs

“…The ED 50 values, i.e., the amount of reagent needed for therapeutic effects on half the population of animals, which indicates the therapeutic effect of antibiotics, in the infection model of silkworms, were consistent with the values in mammals (7). The LD 50 values, i.e., the amount of reagent needed for killing half the population of animals, which indicates toxicity of chemicals, were also consistent between silkworms and mammals (8). Therefore, the silkworm infection model can be used to evaluate both the therapeutic effects and toxicity of candidate chemicals under consideration as antiinfective agents.…”

Advantages of the Silkworm As an Animal Model for Developing Novel Antimicrobial Agents

“…We also demonstrated that the general non-specific transport of molecules through paracellular routes is comparable between the mammalian intestine and the silkworm midgut (Hamamoto et al, 2004, 2005). In addition, the doses of cytotoxic chemicals that are lethal in 50% of the animals (LD 50 ) are similar between silkworms and mammals, indicating that the toxicity of compounds listed in the OECD guidelines can be evaluated using silkworms (Usui et al, 2016). Based on this, we have used silkworms to optimize antimicrobial agents for less acute toxicity and succeeded to increase the median lethal dose (LD 50 ) from 100 to 230 μg/g larvae (Paudel et al, 2013).…”

OUP accepted manuscript

“…These results showed that the ED 50 (median effective dose) and LD 50 (median lethal dose) of certain human pathogens and fungi in silkworm are consistent with those in mouse (Table 2). Usui et al (2016) verified that an acute oral toxicity test in silkworms is a useful way to evaluate the toxicity of compounds in mammals. Panthee et al (2017) utilized silkworm bacterial infection model to screen the therapeutic effectiveness of various microbial culture broths and successfully identified a therapeutically effective novel antibiotic, lysocin E, which has a novel mode of action of binding to menaquinone, an important membrane molecule for the bacterial electron transport chain, as the lysocin E target, thus leading to membrane damage and bactericidal activity.…”