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Silkworm Genetic Resources Lab
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The lab maintains a diverse collection of silkworm strains and investigates how genes function.
AboutAbout the lab
Preserving silkworm strains and exploring gene function
The Silkworm Genetic Resources Lab maintains research silkworms in a wide variety of strains and conducts research using them.
The lab holds about 800 strains, which its website describes as the most diverse collection in the world.
It compares silkworms with unusual traits, such as a different cocoon color or larval body color, with normal silkworms to investigate why these differences arise.
The lab accepts only graduate students and above; it has no undergraduate students and does not assign fourth-year undergraduates.
Key terms
- Mutant
- An individual showing traits different from normal. It serves as material for finding the gene differences responsible.
- Genome editing
- A technology for rewriting gene sequences at targeted sites. It is used to analyze the causative genes of mutants.
- Next-generation sequencing analysis
- An analysis that reads large amounts of DNA or RNA sequence at once. It is used when searching for the causative genes of mutants.
- Bombyx mandarina (wild silkworm)
- A wild species thought to be the ancestor of the domestic silkworm.
NewsLab news
View More ↗ResearchResearch themes
As a stock center for research silkworms, the lab maintains diverse strains and conducts research based on them. By comparing silkworms with unusual traits against normal silkworms, it is possible to learn about the structure and function of the genes that normal silkworms carry.
*Illustrative imageMaintaining diverse silkworm strains
Cocoon color is not only white but also yellow, orange, pink, and more, and some larvae differ in body color and markings. The lab compares silkworms with such unusual traits against normal ones to investigate why the differences arise.
*Illustrative imageThe silkworm as a laboratory animal
The silkworm is an insect that became easy to handle through improvement in the sericulture industry, and it is considered well suited as a laboratory animal because it does not run away and cannot fly. It is also attracting attention as an alternative laboratory animal to mice and rats.
*Illustrative imageSearching for useful insect genes
Using preserved silkworm mutants, the lab identifies causative genes through crossing experiments, next-generation sequencing analysis, genome editing, and other methods, and searches for useful insect genes and analyzes their functions.
*Illustrative imageGenetics of silkworm domestication
The present-day silkworm is thought to have diverged as a result of humans rearing wild silkworms (Bombyx mandarina) over a long period and domesticating them. Using Bombyx mandarina–silkworm chromosome substitution lines, the lab investigates how genomes and genes changed during that process.
MembersFaculty
The members of the Silkworm Genetic Resources Lab consist of faculty, research fellows, master's students, senior technical specialists, technical specialists, and technical staff. In addition, NBRP staff who handle rearing and distribution, and staff who support lab operations, are affiliated with the lab.As of 2025
- Associate ProfessorTsuguru Fujii
- Assistant ProfessorMasato Hino
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Silk worm adult01” smartneddy / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Maintaining diverse silkworm strains: “Bombyx mori - Naturhistorisches Museum, Braunschweig, Germany - DSC04999” Daderot / CC0 (cropped)
- The silkworm as a laboratory animal: “Silkworm Emerging Larva cropped” B kimmel / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Searching for useful insect genes: “Silkworm cocoon attached to a shrub branch” Johnnybam / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Genetics of silkworm domestication: “Silk worm empty cocoons 01” Kuebi = Armin Kübelbeck / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
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- Related lab (植物遺伝子資源学): “Rice diversity” IRRI Images / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (生物資源環境科学府附属水産実験所): “Aquaculture in Lo-nguong” Jack Parkinson / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (昆虫DX): “Aid to the identification of insects (Plate ) Percosoma sculcipenne (cropped)” Waterhouse, Charles Owen / Public domain (cropped)
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