New Wine in Old Wineskin: Progressive Development of Genomic Editing in Bombyx mori

Abstract

The Bombyx mori insect emerging from lepidopteran family is exploited as an important remunerative specie, vis-a-vis as a model organism for scientific findings. It is unequivocally a primal insect model in which genomic altering tool was used to establish a gene function in vitro. A significant milestone in Bombyx genetics is evidenced by contemporary advancement in germline transformation and whole-genome sequencing, producing genetically engineered silkworms (new wine in an old wineskin) to generate recombinant silk proteins for biomedical and industrial applications. Here, we mainly discuss the contemporary advancements in genome modification approaches employed in silkworm research focusing on the three genomic engineering methodologies (ZFNs, TALENs, and CRISPR/Cas9). Since the inception of genomic editing using ZFNs, few experiments under Bombyx have been recorded. The mutation rates in Bombyx using ZFNs are relatively low compared to those using TALENs techniques. TALENs exhibit much simpler design as a single TALE and recognize one nucleotide, unlike ZFNs, which recognize three nucleotides. CRISPR/Cas9 offers flexibility, as well as easy multiplexing and scaling out of reach of the performances of ZFNs and TALENs. Keywords : Targeted mutagenesis, homologous recombination, clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats, transcription activator-like effectors nucleases, and zinc finger nucleases Cite this Article Nartey Moses A, Li Muwang, Li Tao et al. New Wine in Old Wineskin: Progressive Development of Genomic Editing in Bombyx mori. Research & Reviews: Journal of Agricultural Science and Technology. 2018; 7(3): 17–25p.