Abstract：
The silkworm is a lepidopteran domesticated from the wild silkworm, mostly valued for its efficient synthesis of silk protein. This species\' ability to spin silk has supported the 5500-year-old silk industry and the globally known \"Silk Road\", making the transformation of mulberry leaves into silk of great concern. Therefore, research on the silk-related genes of silkworms and their regulatory mechanisms has attracted increasing attention. Previous studies have revealed that domestic silk gland cells are endoreduplication cells, and their high-copy genome and special chromatin conformation provide conditions for the high expression of silk proteins. In this study, we systematically investigate the expression pattern of eukaryotic initiation factors (eIFs) and identified the eIF6 as a eukaryotic translation initiation factor involved in the synthesis of silk proteins. We generated an eIF6 gene deletion mutant strain of silkworm using the CRISPR/Cas9 system and investigated the function of eIF6 in silk gland development and silk protein synthesis. The results showed that deletion of eIF6 inhibited the individual development of silkworm larvae, inhibited the development of silk glands, and significantly reduced the cocoon layer ratio. Therefore, we elucidated the function of eIF6 in the development of silk glands and the synthesis of silk proteins, which is important for further elucidation of the developmental process of silk glands and the mechanism underlying the ultra-high expression of silk proteins.
摘要：
家蚕是从野蚕驯化而来的鳞翅目,主要价值在于其高效合成丝蛋白。这种吐丝能力支持了5500年历史的丝绸行业和全球知名的“丝绸之路”，使桑叶转化为丝绸备受关注。因此,家蚕丝相关基因及其调控机制的研究日益受到重视。以前的研究表明，国内的丝腺细胞是内复制细胞，它们的高拷贝基因组和特殊的染色质构象为丝蛋白的高表达提供了条件。在这项研究中,我们系统地研究了真核起始因子（eIFs）的表达模式，并将eIF6鉴定为参与丝蛋白合成的真核翻译起始因子。我们使用CRISPR/Cas9系统产生了家蚕eIF6基因缺失突变株，并研究了eIF6在丝腺发育和丝蛋白合成中的功能。结果表明，eIF6缺失抑制了家蚕幼虫的个体发育，抑制丝腺的发育，并显著降低了茧层比例。因此,我们阐明了eIF6在丝腺发育和丝蛋白合成中的功能，这对于进一步阐明丝腺的发育过程以及丝蛋白超高表达的机制非常重要。
