Researchers report a method for female-specific gene integration into silkworms using a TALEN enzyme engineered to target a specific site in the W chromosome, which is present only in female silkworms, enabling the creation of silkworm strains with fluorescent females for easy sex sorting in commercial silkworm breeding, as well as a potential system for inducing female-specific embryonic lethality that could be adapted for pest control.
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Article #18-10945: "Silkworm genetic sexing through W chromosome-linked, targeted gene integration," by Zhongjie Zhang et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: Yongping Huang, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, CHINA; e-mail: yphuang@sibs.ac.cn ; Anthony A. James, University of California, Irvine, CA; tel: 949-824-5930; e-mail: aajames@uci.edu
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences