Transcriptome Analysis of Silkworm for Identification of Molecular Markers for Silk Quality

Most of bivoltine silk produced in India is of 2A-3A quality, which is below the international standards (> 3A) and imports from China are still being done for better quality silk for utilization in the powerloom sector. There is an urgent need to develop silkworm hybrids capable of producing superior quality silk to achieve self-sufficiency. This can be achieved by integrating advanced molecular techniques with the conventional breeding methods employing molecular assisted selection. Of several molecular analyses, transcriptome analysis can provide insights into functional genomics by its ability to interpret the functional elements of the genome, biological pathways and molecular mechanism. The identified molecular markers for silk quality could be further utilized for evolving silkworm hybrids (crossbreeds and bivoltine) producing superior quality silk (>3A) employing by marker assisted selection (MAS)