Color the silk without dyeing

Why do it take silk dyeing when silkworms can be genetically modified to create any color in rainbow colors? It is the goal of Japanese scientists to transform their genes so that silkworms produce silk fibers of a certain color.

Takashi Sakudoh, a researcher at Tokyo University, said understanding silkworm's transport mechanism could open a way to change the color of silk through genes.

(Photo: harapan.co.jp, VNE) In nature, silkworm cocoons have colors such as white, light yellow, straw yellow, pink orange, pink and green. The color of the silk comes from natural pigments absorbed when the silkworms eat strawberry leaves.

Japanese researchers observed the silkworm Y gene to produce CPB protein - a protein that helps them take the pigment from nature and bring the color to cocoon . When the Y gene is mutated, the created CPBs no longer function to make them unable to extract the yellow compound from the mulberry leaf and thereby produce white silk.

Using genetic modification techniques, the researchers introduced the entire Y gene into mutated insects. These worms create active CBP and cocoons are yellow. This yellow will become more colorful after several times of breeding.

The researchers said it was possible to change the strands so that the fibers were either bright red or light red.

MT