Tag Archives: Nadia Drake

Mutant silkworms enter world of haute couture

Researchers in Japan have bioengineered silkworms which produce silk in fluorescent shades of red, orange, and green.

Wedding gown made from fluorescent silks, designed by Yumi Katsura, shown in white and UV light. (Iizuka et al., Advanced Functional Materials)

Wedding gown made from fluorescent silks, designed by Yumi Katsura, shown in white and UV light. (Iizuka et al., Advanced Functional Materials)

The dress gives you two looks for your wedding, one for the ceremony and one for the reception. Unfortunately, it’s not listed on Yumi Katsura’s website, so you may have to wait a while before you can purchase it.

You can read more about the mutant silkworms in a June 21, 2013 news item by Lin Edwards for phys.org,

Scientists in Japan have genetically engineered silkworms to create red, green or orange silks that glow under fluorescent lights.
… a research team led by Tetsuya Iizuka and Toshiki Tamura of the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences in Ibaraki, Japan, has genetically modified the silkworm by transplanting genes from organisms that produce fluorescent proteins into the silkworm genome at the site coding for the silk fiber protein fibroin. The genes they used to make the transgenic silkworms came from the Fungia concinna coral (orange), Discoma coral (red) or jellyfish (green).

There is also a June 20, 2013 story by Nadia Drake for Wired magazine which provides more information and images about the project in Japan (Note: Links have been removed),

Silkworms in a Japanese lab are busy spinning silks that glow in the dark. But these silkworms, unlike others that have been fed rainbow-colored dyes, don’t need any dietary interventions to spin in color: They’ve been genetically engineered to produce fluorescent skeins in shades of red, orange, and green.

Now, scientists have tweaked the silk production process and made it possible to turn these somewhat freakish threads into useable fabrics.

The resulting silks glow under fluorescent light, and are only ever-so-slightly weaker than silks that are normally used for fabrics, scientists reported June 12 in Advanced Functional Materials. Already, the glowing silks have been incorporated into everyday garments such as suits and ties, and Japanese wedding dress designer Yumi Katsura has designed and made gowns that glow in the dark.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the published research paper,

Colored Fluorescent Silk Made by Transgenic Silkworms by Tetsuya Iizuka, Hideki Sezutsu, Ken-ichiro Tatematsu, Isao Kobayashi, Naoyuki Yonemura, Keiro Uchino, Kenichi Nakajima, Katsura Kojima, Chiyuki Takabayashi, Hiroaki Machii, Katsushige Yamada2, Hiroyuki Kurihara, Tetsuo Asakura, Yasumoto Nakazawa, Atsushi Miyawaki, Satoshi Karasawa, Hatsumi Kobayashi, Junji Yamaguchi, Nobuo Kuwabara, Takashi Nakamura, Kei Yoshii, and Toshiki Tamura.
Article first published online: 12 JUN 2013 Adv. Funct. Mater.. doi: 10.1002/adfm.201300365

© 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

This paper is behind a paywall.