CRISPR/Cas9-Mediated Editing of BmEcKL1 Gene Sequence Affected Silk Gland Development of Silkworms (Bombyx mori)

Abstract

The silkworm (Bombyx mori) has served humankind through silk protein production. However, traditional sericulture and the silk industry have encountered considerable bottlenecks and must rely on major technological breakthroughs to keep up with the current rapid developments. The adoption of gene editing technology has nevertheless brought new hope to traditional sericulture and the silk industry. The long period and low efficiency of traditional genetic breeding methods to obtain high silk-yielding silkworm strains have hindered the development of the sericulture industry; the use of gene editing technology to specifically control the expression of genes related to silk gland development or silk protein synthesis is beneficial for obtaining silkworm strains with excellent traits. In this study, BmEcKL1 was specifically knocked out in the middle (MSGs) and posterior (PSGs) silk glands using CRISPR/Cas9 technology, and ΔBmEcKL1-MSG and ΔBmEcKL1-PSG strains with improved MSGs and PSGs and increased silk production were obtained. This work identifies and proves that BmEcKL1 directly or indirectly participates in silk gland development and silk protein synthesis, providing new perspectives for investigating silk gland development and silk protein synthesis mechanisms in silkworms, which is of great significance for selecting and breeding high silk-yielding silkworm varieties.

A Simple and Low-Cost CRISPR/Cas9 Knockout System Widely Applicable to Insects

“…Insects 2024, 15, 339 2 of 8 Nowadays, the CRISPR/Cas9 system has diversified applications. By integrating the region-specific promoter and piggyBac transposable system, specific gene knockout of different organ regions is achieved [10,11]. The Receptor-Mediated Ovary Transduction of Cargo (ReMOT) method has been employed for germline-level gene editing, which is an effective method to avoid embryo injection [12][13][14].…”