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Background: Pebrine, caused by microsporidium Nosema bombycis, is a devastating disease that causes serious economic damages to the sericulture industry. Studies on development of therapeutic and diagnostic options for managing pebrine in silkworms are very limited. Methionine aminopeptidase type 2 (MetAP2) of microsporidia is an essential gene for their survival and has been exploited as the cellular target of drugs such as fumagillin and its analogues in several microsporidia spp., including Nosema of honeybees. Methods: In the present study, using molecular and bioinformatics tools, we performed in-depth characterization and phylogenetic analyses of MetAP2 of Nosema bombycis isolated from Guangdong province of China. Results: The full length of MetAP2 gene sequence of Nosema bombycis (Guangdong isolate) was found to be 1278 base pairs (bp), including an open reading frame of 1,077 bp, encoding a total of 358 amino acids. The bioinformatics analyses predicted the presence of typical alpha-helix structural elements, and absence of transmembrane domains and signal peptides. Additionally, other characteristics of a stable protein were also predicted. The homology-based 3D models of MetAP2 of Nosema bombycis (Guangdong isolate) with high accuracy and reliability were developed. The MetAP2 protein was expressed and purified. The observed molecular weight of MetAP2 protein was found to be ~43-45 kDa. The phylogenetic analyses showed that MetAP2 gene and amino acids sequences of Nosema bombycis (Guangdong isolate) shared a close evolutionary relationship with Nosema spp. of wild silkworms, but it was divergent from microsporidian spp. of other insects, Aspergillus spp., Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and higher animals including humans. These analyses indicated that the conservation and evolutionary relationships of MetAP2 are closely linked to the species relationships. Conclusion: This study provides solid foundational information that could be helpful in optimization and development of diagnostic and treatment options for managing the threat of Nosema bombycis infection in sericulture industry of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the earliest fibers used by mankind is silk, which was first cultivated in China. Mulberry silk is produced from Bombyx Mori which feeds on mulberry tree leaves. Bombyx Mori silkworm, hatching from its egg after 8–10 days of incubation, starts spinning its cocoon around itself on the 25th or 28th day. These cocoons are subjected to dry heat or boiling water which kills the pupae. Most of the silk consumers in Turkey are not aware of the fact that the silkworms are killed before completing their natural life span. On the other hand, the number of consumers has been rising in the world who wants to wear silk without harming the animals. In this study sericulture was done in an ethical way to produce peace silk fabrics and some of the mechanical properties of the fabrics were determined. This study is of value, raising awareness about peace silk and ethical production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dunhuang is not only one of the important agricultural regions in China, but also has formed a unique food custom through the integration of diverse cultures along the Silk Road, becoming a grain production base in the Western Regions. Ancient Dunhuang people explored the path of agricultural development in the long-term production practices, actively promoting agricultural production in the region, and transforming the agricultural production structure, leading to a shift in the mode of production. This paper aims to correctly understand the agricultural production characteristics and patterns of ancient Dunhuang and explore the impact of Dunhuang’s agricultural development on local culinary customs, providing an insight into the overall picture of ancient Dunhuang’s agricultural production and lifestyle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a critical material manifestation of Chinese culture, silk has both important and significant cultural representational value as well as multidimensional information worth. Silk archives are an important carrier of silk culture and memory. The Archives of Suzhou Silk are the most complete archives of silk in existence and document the heritage of China and even the world beyond. To better tell the story of the Archives of Suzhou Silk in a digital environment, this article adopts a case study method, taking the Taffeta Archives of the Suzhou Dongwu Silk Factory as an example. It approaches these archives from the perspective of archival science and narratology, discusses the digital storytelling framework of the Archives of Suzhou Silk, and builds a narrative-oriented "story material discovery–story element organization–digital story generation" path and an object-oriented "digitization–datamation–graphing–storytelling" path to build content-based and structure-based narrative graphs and narrative space applications. The construction of the digital storytelling framework can fully show the value of the archival documentary heritage of Suzhou silk, allowing it to better tell its story and providing new thinking for the sustainable development of the Memory of the World Documentary Heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the seventeenth century crisis, China witnessed the decline and fall of the Ming dynasty. Scholars have long discussed the role of silver in the Ming crisis, but less attention has been paid to the effects of the production and circulation of silk. This paper examines both internal and external factors that contributed to the decline of Chinese sericulture and silk production, as well as consequent damages to the economy and social relations. Converging environmental and economic factors within major silk-producing regions, as well as a number of incidents that affected the Pacific trade of silk, exacerbated the problems of the late Ming. This paper applies the Law of Supplies and Demands to analyse interconnections between China, Manila, and New Spain. An understanding of the silk industry is essential to explain significant economic connections both within Ming China and between China and the outside world during the seventeenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to find out the reasons for the long-term spread of Xinjiang Hami Uygur embroidery patterns, and promote the protection and inheritance of the Hami Uyghur embroidery as an intangible cultural inheritance in China. The formation factors and cultural connotations of Hami Uygur embroidery patterns were studied in detail. On the basis of studying the literature and material materials of Hami Uyghur embroidery patterns, starting from the cultural connotation of patterns, using the literature research method and analyzing the induction method, and combing out the cultural connotation of Hami Uygur embroidery patterns is mainly influenced by two cultures. The first is the central plains culture based on the confucian " nature and humanity" thought and the Taoist immortal thought. The second is the silk road culture based on Buddhism and Zoroastrianism. The pattern of cultural integration features of diversity was explored, the profound cultural connotation of the pattern was considered, and further a feasible way to study the inheritance and innovative design of Hami Uygur embroidery was provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

【Objective】 The present paper aimed to study how the project named ‘Sericulture Moving from East to West’ affect the supply-side structural reform of the sericulture industry. 【Method】the changes of mulberry fields in different provinces 10 years before and after the implementation of the policy(from 1996 to 2016) were analyzed. Also, combined with natural, social, economic data from 1999 to 2016, this paper explored spatial structure characteristics and driven forces of mulberry area changes using spatial analysis and mathematical statistics. 【Result】(i) The area of mulberry fields in the eastern China decreased linearly, 16482.81 ha every year, with-4.94 % since dynamic degree, since 2006 the year implementing moving sericulture production area from the east to west policy, while the area of mulberry fields increased linearly, with 7924.69 ha every year and 1.96 % dynamic degree in ten years;(ii) The spatial model revealed that from 1996 to 2016, the center of mulberry field transferred from north to south, with a clear trend of diverting to the southwestern part of China;(iii) Principal component analysis and stepwise regression analysis demonstrated that natural, population and economy, as three major driving forces had significant impact on the area change of mulberry fields. Here, natural factor was the annual rainfall. Population factor included the number of people aged from 15 to 64, and the number of people old than 65. Economic factor was the value of secondary industry. 【Conclusion】Under the combined driving of policy guidance, natural conditions, population structure and economic development, the spatial and temporal pattern of mulberry plantation area in China has changed significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Jesuit missionaries in seventeenth-century China struggled to translate Christian theology into Chinese terms and categories, they embarked on a project of purifying the "political" from the "superstitious." Their project was structured by the unmentionable: the proscribed luxury of silk robes that facilitated the encounters between the missionaries and the native elite they most sought to convert. This article examines the manifold functions of silk and the problem of "accommodation" by turning to the Brevis relatio de numero et qualitate Christianorum apud Sinas ("Brief report on the number and quality of Christians in China"), a booklet authored by the Jesuit missionary Martino Martini (1614–1661). Written for European circulation, the Brevis relatio touted the triumphs of the mission by incorporating the conceptual imaginary of "China" into the cosmo-political confines of the Euro-Christian world. This article shows how the basic Christian metaphor of horticultural fruitfulness was used to interpret silk and sericulture as material evidence that the Chinese mission field prefigured and promised, both spiritually and commercially, a profitable harvest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fungal pathogen Beauveria bassiana causes serious economic losses in sericulture. Its origin is usually attributed to the release of B. bassiana insecticides against pine caterpillars ( Dendrolimus punctuatus ). In the present study, 488 B. bassiana isolates obtained from silkworm ( Bombyx mori ) collected from 13 Chinese provinces, and 327 B. bassiana isolates obtained from D. punctatus collected from 9 provinces, were analyzed for population genetic structure using the ISSR technique based on genetic distance. A UPGMA dendrogram clustered them into three independent clades: two B. mori clades and one D. punctatus clade. A 3-D principal component analysis further divided them into two completely independent host groups, revealing high host-specificity. This suggested that white muscardine occurring in B. mori populations throughout southern China was not caused by any B. bassiana strain either naturally prevailing in D. punctatus populations or by any strain artificially released as a fungal insecticide against D. punctatus . We further investigated the genetic differentiation coefficient G st and gene flow between B. mori -pathogenic and D. punctatus -pathogenic B. bassiana isolates from across China and from five provinces inhabited by both B. mori and D. punctatus . The G st value across China was computed as 0.410, while the values of the five provinces ranged from 0.508 to 0.689; all above 0.25, which is the threshold for significant genetic differentiation. This suggests that B. bassiana strains isolated from the two different hosts maintained their respective heredity without a convergent homogenization trend, and reduces the possibility that the host range of the caterpillar isolates could expand and enhance their virulence in B. mori . These findings indicate that the use of B. bassiana does not threaten the safety of sericulture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Net income per capita in rural Wuxi did not change linearly from the 1840s to the 1940s. It tripled from the 1860s-80s and then retreated to approximately the level of the 1840s by the 1930s-40s. The sharp fluctuation was caused mainly by changes in population and household economic structure, as agricultural yields changed little. Development of the industrial and urban economy partially offset declining income in sericulture in the 1920s-40s by employing rural laborers, but raising the net income per capita to the late-nineteenth-century level would have required the threefold growth of the Jiangnan industrial and urban economy, which was unlikely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to improve the classic techniques of silkworm breeding and achieve the integration of good economic traits and disease resistance traits, a cross-breeding and molecular marker assisted breeding technology combined was developed in this experiment. The practical strain Jingsong and the strain NB, highly resistant to the BmNPV found from the library of silkworm races and strains in China, were selected as the breeding material. Through cross-breeding and backcrossing, the disease resistant gene was introducted into the economic strain Jingsong. At the same time, the strain Qiufeng, resistant to the BmDNV, was used as the donor material of resistance gene. In this experiment, a new strain resistant to the two virus, BmNPV and BmDNV-Z, was obtained through the method of virus administrion and molecular marker assisted breeding technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Biomass energy is the main energy source in rural China. The low per capita cropland in China makes it impractical to convert cropland to energy crop cultivation as in other countries; development of energy crops must not compete with food and other cash crops for prime cropland. Mulberry planted on marginal lands like land risers, land boundaries and waste slopelands in Ningnan County of China''s southwestern Sichuan Province not only yielded enough leaf biomass to support a production of over 6000t of cocoons in 2005, but also produced large amounts of woody biomass through annual pruning. Mulberry planted on marginal lands would not be replaced by food or other cash crops if cocoon prices drop. The average annual dry matter biomass of pruned mulberry branches is 1.7kg/plant, or approximately 17.0–22.5t/ha, which is high compared to the annual biomass growth of many fast growing trees and perennial herbaceous energy crops. Mulberry prunings exceed household needs for fuelwood because household energy requirements are met with multiple sources. Income from cocoons is the major driving force for the expansion of mulberry planting on marginal land, as lack of incentives has accounted for slow development of firewood in China. Large scale development of marginal land-based planting of mulberry can also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, conserve forests and promote biodiversity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Silk is an important economic fibre, and is generally considered to have been the exclusive cultural heritage of China. Silk weaving is evident from the Shang period c. 1600–1045bc, though the earliest evidence for silk textiles in ancient China may date to as much as a millennium earlier. Recent microscopic analysis of archaeological thread fragments found inside copper-alloy ornaments from Harappa and steatite beads from Chanhu-daro, two important Indus sites, have yielded silk fibres, dating to c. 2450–2000bc. This study offers the earliest evidence in the world for any silk outside China, and is roughly contemporaneous with the earliest Chinese evidence for silk. This important new finding brings into question the traditional historical notion of sericulture as being an exclusively Chinese invention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Insect parasitism was known in China for a long time in the form of parasitic tachinid flies of silkworms (Bombyx mori L.). These tachinid flies were first mentioned in the Chinese literature around 300 AD. The developmental cycle of this tachinid (possibly a species of the genus Exorista) were clearly described by Lu Dian in 1096. This antedates the first descriptions of insect parasitoids from Europe by 600 years. Another parasitic fly, a flesh fly (possibly Blaesoxipha lapidosa Pape) was noted as the main parasitoid of Locusta migratoria manilensis Meyen in 1196. The first Chinese record with a correct description of the life cycle of a hymenopteran parasitoid dates from 1704. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The performance of the Japanese raw silk exports contrasted sharply with that of China. In 1873 China exported three times as much raw silk as Japan, but by 1905, Japanese raw silk exports exceeded the Chinese, and in 1930, Japanese raw silk exports tripled those of China, gaining a dominant 80% share in the global market. This contrast is puzzling given that as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Chinese raw silk dominated the Japanese market, and even in the mid-nineteenth century, Chinese silk enjoyed a more favorable global reputation than that of Japan. This article presents a comparative analysis of this dramatic contrast by focusing on the cocoon sector that contributes between 60% and 80% in the value added of raw silk, leaving the reeling sector to future study. It also adopts a regional approach by comparing Japan with the Lower Yangzi, the most advanced region of China. They are comparable in size, population, and climate and are part of the wet-rice economies characterized by intensive agriculture, high population density, and small-scale farming. The broad similarities in initial conditions, factor endowment ratios, crop choice, and geographic environment offer us a rare case study of a relatively controlled experiment. This article mobilizes a multitude of independent sources of information, including the voluminous survey reports on the Chinese silk sector written by Japanese specialists between the 1890s and the 1930s, and offers various technical and productivity indices, including a price dual total factor productivity (TFP) index. The quantitative analysis is further supported by a careful examination of the institutional and technological developments in the cocoon production and distribution sectors in these two regions. The rest of the article is divided into three sections followed by a conclusion. Section I presents comparative data on output, input, and prices and estimates of partial and total factor productivities. Section II, consisting of three parts, offers a comparative narrative of technology and commercialization and a summary of growth accounting results. Section III describes the 1930s catch-up in the Lower Yangzi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demonstrates the centrality of peasant women's work in sericulture in the evolution of one form of early twentieth century Chinese capitalism. Nature of Chinese capitalism in the twentieth century; Comparison of capitalism among Third World locales; How income is generated by male and female labor; Information on capitalism and women's labor in the Wuxi farming system; Why women work in sericulture.

The section of "The Romance of Silk" focuses on the silk production in several countries. China is the leading producer of silk in the world with the production of over 90% of the exportable raw silk. As per several statistics, the sericulture in Japan has been declining due to rising labor cost. India is another country like China, which has a long tradition of silk production, but it is focused on domestic industry. Other than Asian countries, many farmers in Brazil who are descended from Japanese origins have started sericulture dates back over 50 years.

This paper summarizes and analyses the status quo of the sericultural standards in China, and points out the characteristics and existed problems of sericultural standards in China. In addition, the future of the sericultural standards system is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Light, heat and water resources in Huicheng Basin had significant advantages, and Huicheng Basin was an ideal area for planting mulberry and breeding silkworm. Climate was mild and humid in the basin, and frost-free period was long, which provided favorable condition for planting mulberry and breeding silkworm. Main meteorological disasters affecting mulberry growth included late frost in spring, drought in end spring and early summer. Continuous rain in autumn had certain influence on sericulture, but was favorable for mulberry wintering and growth in spring. At present, carrying capacity of the silkworm in the basin also had large space, and planting mulberry and breeding silkworm had wide developing prospect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information about the silk industry in Asia, and India, in particular. China is the leading producer and supplier of silk to the world and India is the second leading supplier and producer. A golden yellow silk, called muga, is unique to India. The method used to unwind the silk from the cocoons of the silkworm are described in detail. The process for converting raw silk into twisted silk yarn is also discussed. Handlooms are still used and many of the sarees and other fabrics with intricate patterns are created on handlooms.

The article discusses the claim of researcher Ji-Huan He of the Modern Textile Institute on the evidence regarding sericulture origin in China.