This paper shows that silk fibers produced by cecropia (Hyalophora cecropia) have similar tensile properties but different amino acid composition than that of mulberry (Bombyx mori) silk. The cecropia fibers are also much finer and have better strength and modulus than tasar silk, the most common non-mulberry silk. Cecropia is one of the largest silk producing moths and has similar lifecycle to...

A new modeling approach is proposed for predicting the bulk electromechanical properties of piezoelectric composites. The proposed model offers the same level of convenience as the wellknown Mori-Tanaka method. The electromechanical properties of four piezoelectric polymer composite materials are predicted with the proposed, Mori-Tanaka, Self-consistent methods, and detailed finite element anal...

Sericulture or silk farming is the rearing of silkworms for the production of raw silk. The mulberry silkworm, Bombyx mori, is a domesticated and monophagous insect which feeds only on the leaves of mulberry for its nutrition. Thiadiazoles are heterocyclic compounds containing oxygen and nitrogen. 1, 3, 4, thiadiazoles are extensively studied and are known to play diverse biological activities....

A simplified methodology was developed to study the geometric form of multiple Bombyx mori Nucleopolyhedrovirus by scanning electron microscopy. The virus belongs to Baculoviridae family and was isolated from the silkworm Bombyx mori (L.) (Lepidoptera: Bombycidae). The polyhedra of Nucleopolyhedrovirus were obtained from the filtrate, inoculum and hemolymph of the silkworm experimentally infect...

A cDNA encoding an IkappaB family protein was identified and the full nucleotide sequence was determined in the silkworm Bombyx mori. The IkappaB gene, designated BmCactus, was constitutively expressed mainly in the fat body and hemocytes. Transfection experiments on a B. mori cell line, NIAS-Bm-aff3, with expression vectors containing BmCactus, BmRelA, BmRelB, or the active portion of BmRelish...

Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus (BmNPV) that infects the silkworm, B. mori, accounts for >50% of silk cocoon crop losses globally. We speculated that simultaneous targeting of several BmNPV essential genes in transgenic silkworm would elicit a stable defense against the virus. We introduced into the silkworm germline the vectors carrying short sequences of four essential BmNPV genes in tandem,...

A rare phenomenon of SDS-induced activation of a latent protease activity associated with the purified silkworm excretory red fluorescent protein (SE-RFP) was noticed. SE-RFP aliquots incubated with SDS for different time intervals indicated that the protein undergoes an obligatory breakdown into a number of subunits which exhibit autoproteolytic (acting upon themselves) and/or heteroproteolyti...

O sm undalin, a glucoside of osm undalactone, isolated from the royal fern, Osmunda japonica, stim ulated the deterren t cell (“R recep tor” cells, associated with deter­ rency) in the medial sensilla styloconica of Bombyx mori. From the dose-response curve, the lower limit of detection was 3 .6 x l0 ~ 53 .6 x l0 “4 m. This is the first re­ port tha t glucoside lactone elicits the impulses from...