The silkworm, Bombyx mori L., is an important economic insect that has been domesticated for thousands of years to produce silk. It is our great interest to investigate the possibility of developing the B. mori as human disease model. We searched the orthologs of human disease associated genes in the B. mori by bi-directional best hits of BLAST and confirmed by searching the OrthoDB. In total, ...

Topical application with 100, 200 and 300 ng/ml phytohormone salicyclic acid on commercial traits was analysed in bivoltine CSR2, CSR4 and CSR2XCSR4 crossbreed races of the silkworm, Bombyx mori L. The results showed that there was significant increase in larval weight female cocoon weight, male cocoon shell weight, and hatching percentage with 100 and 200 ng/ml, silkgland weight, female cocoo...

The domesticated silkworm, Bombyx mori Linn., a lepidopteran molecular model and an important economic insect that are emerging as an ideal molecular genetic resource for solving a broad range of biological problems. The silkworm, B. mori produces massive amount of silk proteins during the final stage of larval development. These proteins are stored in the middle silk gland and they are dischar...

Patients with bilateral serous retinal detachments and panuveitis related to Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease are commonly managed with oral corticosteroids, immunosuppressive agents, and/or intravitreal injections. We present the case of a 56-year-old Hispanic man with Harada disease whose bilateral serous retinal detachments and panuveitis were treated with topical corticosteroid difluprednate al...

CASE PRESENTATION A 20 year old Asian male was referred with the complaint of decreased vision in both eyes for a year. His past medical and surgical histories were unremarkable. His family history revealed thyroid disease in his mother. Review of systems were remarkable for alopecia and headache at the time when his eye problems began. The first eye exam from his referring ophthalmologist reve...

An 11-year-old female girl presented to us with fever of 3 months duration. Additionally she had vitiligo for two years and deafness and alopecia for the last 3 months. Two years ago, the patient had an episode of pain, watering and congestion of both eyes (suggestive of nontraumatic uveitis) for 2 weeks. She responded to therapy in the form of eye drops and oral medication (Ayurvedic medicine)...

Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease is a chronic, granulomatous systemic autoimmune disease with manifestations in the ocular, central nervous, auditory, and integumentary systems. The target of attack seems to be antigens associated with melanocytes. Patients are usually of Asian, Middle Eastern, Asian Indian, Native American, or Hispanic ethnicity, and complain of neurologic symptoms quickly followe...

Using silkworm Bombyx mori Bm5 cells, we established a stable cell line expressing the human granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (hGM-CSF), which gets its name from the Bm5-hGM-CSF cell in which the glycoprotein of the hGM-CSF is secreted in the cell culture supernatant (CCS). It was demonstrated that secreted hGM-CSF had in vivo biological activity and the white blood cell (WBC) v...