Polymorphism analysis of fibroin heavy chain gene for creating new silks

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K21153
• Project/Area Number (Other): 18H06013 (2018)
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund (2019); Single-year Grants (2018)
• Review Section: 0602:Agricultural and environmental biology and related fields
• Research Institution: National Agriculture and Food Research Organization
• Principal Investigator: Iga Masatoshi 国立研究開発法人農業・食品産業技術総合研究機構, 生物機能利用研究部門, 研究員 (70721497)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-08-24 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: フィブロイン H鎖 / 絹糸性状 / シルク / カイコ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

There are varieties of silkworm strains that have character in the silk thread, such as thickness and physical properties. Since, the fibroin H chain (FibH) gene, which is the principal component of silk fiber, has a large size and contains many highly repetitive sequences, the sequencing of full-length FibH gene is very difficult. Therefore, the relationship between character of silk thread and genetic information was unknown. Verification of the raw silk character and sequencing the full-length FibH gene using a nanopore sequencer were performed on several silkworm strains that have characteristic silk threads. The sequences of FibH were different among the strains, and examining the correlation between the raw silk character and sequence information of the FibH gene showed expecting factor for influencing the difference in physical property of raw silks.

Free Research Field

蚕糸科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

これまで困難とされてきたカイコのフィブロインH鎖（FibH）遺伝子の解析がナノポアシーケンサーを用いることで可能であることが明らかとなった。これにより、今回初めて品種間でFibH遺伝子の配列が異なることがわかった。また、絹糸性状とFibH遺伝子の配列情報との相関を検討することにより、力学物性の違いに関係することが期待される配列の差異を見出した。これらの成果は学術的な意義に加え、品種育成や遺伝子組換えによる特徴的な力学物性を有する絹糸を産生するカイコの作出等への貢献が期待される。