Biotechnological Approaches in Wild Silk Culture

Wild silk moths form a very important part of livelihood in rural areas of India and China. Silks produced by wild silk moths are distinct in nature with special characteristics of luster, texture, and color. The development of cost-effective DNA sequencing technologies and advanced gene editing tools even in non-model organisms in recent years has made it possible for the application of biotechnological tools in wild silk moths such as Antheraea assamensis (muga silkworm), Samia ricini (eri silkworm), Antheraea mylitta (tasar silkworm), Antheraea pernyi (Chinese oak tasar), and Antheraea yamamai (Japanese wild silkworm). A high-quality genome sequence is available for all these wild silk moths. Several tissue transcriptomes from different wild silk moths have been sequenced to obtain global gene expression profiles. The genomics and transcriptomics resources have been made easily accessible through databases, namely, WildSilkbase and Vanya Silkbase. The gene editing protocol has been tried and tested successfully in eri silkworm and is being tested in other silk moths as well. With these tools and reagents already available for studying the biology of wild silk moths, it is now possible to address some of the issues in economically important wild silk moths in Asia, especially in improving silk quantity and quality besides value addition through non-textile application.