Development of long preservation system by freeze dried sperm in silkworm, Bombyx mori

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25660270
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Insect science
• Research Institution: National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences
• Principal Investigator: UCHINO Keiro 独立行政法人農業生物資源研究所, 遺伝子組換えカイコ研究開発ユニット, 主任研究員 (90563627)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): KASASHIMA Megumi 国立研究開発法人農業生物資源研究所, 遺伝子組換え研究センター・遺伝子組換え カイコ研究開発ユニット, 任期付き研究員 (90458290)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: フリーズドライ精子 / 顕微授精(ICSI) / カイコ / カブラハバチ

Free Research Field

昆虫科学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

On development of intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) in the silkworm, it is important to detect the cell cycle restart of unfertilized egg and discover triggers of the restart. We could detect the cell cycle restart of unfertilized egg examining phosphorylation or dephosphorylation of Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase (MAPK) as the evaluation index. And our results indicates that heat shock treatment make this restart.
In mammals it is known that freeze-dried sperms have fertility in ICSI. To investigate whether it is effective in insects as mammals or not, we examined using the sawfly, Athalia rosae in which ICSI is available. We tried the injection of freeze-dried sperms into unfertilized egg in about 1000 scale growing 200 embryos in which we found only one embryo which express marker gene derived from sperm, indicating the effectivity of ICSI using freeze-dried sperms in insect.