The silkworm gut microbiota: A potential source for biotechnological applications (Chapter 1)

Abstract

Silkworm is a typical representative of the lepidopteran insects and has great importance in agriculture and economy. Like most lepidopterans, silkworm is also associated with a large consortium of symbiotic microbes. The commensal flora are found to play a crucial role in the survival of insects by protecting their insect hosts against the natural enemies and pathogens through varied mechanisms that include colonial resistance, production of toxins and the insects immune system activation to fight the invader organism. Pertaining to the essential role of the gut microflora that helps the insect host in a variety of ways, these gut associated microbes pave the way for industrial applications in different fields like disease therapy, agriculture and biotechnology. Several efforts are presented to identify, isolate and utilize the insect gut microflora in biotechnology especially for therapeutic potential and also to obtain the enzymes useful in biotechnology and bioremediation.