The silkworm (Bombyx mori) is not a worm, but the larva of a moth. First domesticated for silk production about 5,000 years ago, it is a well-studied lepidopteran model system, thanks to its rich repertoire of distinctive mutations affecting virtually every aspect of the organism's morphology, development and behavior, as well as its considerable economic importance. Fresh progress has been made in genetic studies of the silkworm in the teamwork of scientists from the CAS Beijing Genomics Institute, Southwest Agricultural University, the James D. Watson Institute of Genome Sciences of Zhejiang University and the Genome Center of the University of Washington in the US.
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