SILKWORMS have been coaxed into mass-producing a valuable medical protein in the fabric of their cocoons.
Katsutoshi Yoshizato’s team at Hiroshima University in Japan gave Bombyx mori worms a gene for manufacturing collagen, a component of connective tissue that doctors use in reconstructive and cosmetic surgery. They linked the collagen gene to a switch that normally activates fibroin, a protein made exclusively in silk glands. Yoshizato will report in Nature Biotechnology that 10 per cent of the protein in the cocoons was collagen, and was easy to extract.
With silk production a major industry in many oriental countries, says Yoshizato,…
