• Journal of Sericultural and Entomological Science
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• v.2
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• pp.1-31
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• 1962

The purpose of this treatise is to prove the presence of cystine in silk fiber through wide sampling throughout all the sericultural processes of Bombyx mori.; also to show that disulfide cross linkages exist in the silk fiber. The conclusions reached were as follows: 1. Crystalline cystine was obtained from silk fibroin using Folin's Method. 2. Analytical data showing the cystine content of silk fiber and its related materials were obtained using Sullvan's Method as follows: Material Percent Cystine A. Mulberry leaf protein 0.175 B. Silkworm egg 0.33 C. Silkworm Body, matured, fat extracted, without silk gland 0.41 D. Silk gland, matured 1.23 E. Silkworm feces none F. Silkworm pupa, fat extracted 0.30 G. Silkworm moth, fat extracted 0.60 H. Raw Silk 0.22 I. Fibroin 0.175 J. Sericin 0.30 3. The presence of cystine in the silkworm was substantiated the existence of 0.175 % methionine in mulberry leaves and 0.12% methionine in the silk gland. 4. Part of the sulfhydryl compounds in the silk gland is believed to transfer to serine and methionine, with the former being secreted into the liquid silk finally as silk fiber and the latter used for nutritive purposes in the growing of silk gland tissue. 5. The cystine content is variable by mulberry species, silkworm species, sex, breeding process, and other culturing environments. 6. Hybrid silkworms require more nutritive amino acids for effective growth than the original parents, and secrete less of them as silk fiber. 7. From such an observation, the amino acid composition of silk fiber is believed to be fairly flexible. Cystine if included in the amorphous part of the fiber, especially in sericin. 8. The result from enriching the silkworm diet with pure cystine or wool cystine did not result in any advantage, therefore it is believed that the natural cystine and methionine contents in the mulberry leafaregoodenoughforsilkwormnutrition. 9. The disulfide cross linkage in silk fiber was verified by using the Harris Method. Contraction took place following the treatment of the fiber with various salts and acids. Comparisons were made with wool fiber. 10. During these experiments, the fibrious structure of silk fiber and the net-globular liquid form were photographed microscopically. It is believed that the globules of liquid silk are net-formed by the inter attraction of the OH ion of the globular peptide and the H ion of water as shown by the hair cracking behavior of the film. The net-globular protein precipitation from the mulberry protein solution showed that mulberry is a proper diet for the formation of fibrous protein in the silk fiber. 11. The significance of the presence of cystine in silk fiber as emphasized in this paper should result in modification of the general conception that cystine is absent from this fiber. NOTICE: A part of this treatise was presented at the annual Korea Sericultural Society meeting held in 1961.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.115-120
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• 2006

Enzymatic hydrolysis of silk fibers were investigated for the preparation of soluble silk peptides by ten food-grade proteases from Bacillus, Aspergilius, and plant sources. Silk fibers were dissolved for 1 hr in a 2:1 cosolvent (50% $CaCl_2$: ethanol) by heating at $90^{\circ}C$. The silk solution was filtered to remove Impurity particles and desalted for 50 hours by a dialysis process to remove the used cosolvent. When the silk hydrolysis was performed at $45^{\circ}C$ for 2 hours, most proteases from Bacillus and Aspergillus generated large amounts of insoluble aggregates. On the contrary, proteases from plant sources produced much less aggregates during prolonged incubations and also exhibited high hydrolysis activities. In regards of the solubility and broad molecular sizes of produced silk peptides, Bromelain was finally selected and applied for the enzymatic hydrolysis of silk fibers.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.213-219
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• 2009

Crystallization experiments were performed by addition of various amino acids into biomineralization mixture of calcium carbonate. Liquid-liquid reaction of calcium carbonate was investigated by mixing calcium chloride, sodium carbonate and additives such as silk fibroin, asparagine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid and glycine. Also, the effects of reaction time, pH and solution concentration were observed. Analysis of crystals was done by FE-SEM, XRD, FT-IR equipments. FE-SEM was used in order to analyze morphology and crystal size. XRD was used to measure peak intensities and presence of $CaCO_3$ crystal. Two kinds of crystals were confirmed by FT-IR spectrum. Crystal distribution with reaction time was identified with measured peak areas of XRD and FT-IR data.

• Journal of Sericultural and Entomological Science
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.32-40
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• 1992

Many studies have been carried out on the graft finishing in order to improve the quality of silk fiber. Various vinyl monomers, for instance, styrene, methylmethacrylate, 2-hydroxyeth-ylmethacrylate and methacrylamide, have been used practically up to date. Among these monomers, methacrylamide has been applied as the most favourable monomer onto silk fibers in recent years. The polymerization mechanism about styrene- and methylmethacrylate-grafted silk fiber has been studied by many researchers. They proposed that free radicals were formed and vinyl monomers were polymerized in silk fibroin by graft polymerization mechanism, while active sites were varied by the types of monomer and initiator as well as by the reaction condition. In general. there is another Opinion that monomers are polymerized and impregnated in the internal side of the fiber by homopolymerization, which has not been proved experimentally yet More than 10 years have been passed since methacrylamide was applied on the silk fiber, and at the present time most finishings are being achieved by methacrylamide. However, no attention has been paid to the polymerization mechanism of the methacrylamide-treated silk fiber yeL In this paper, the treatments of methacrylamide on silk fibers were studied in aqueous solution using potassium persulfate as an initiator. The polymerization mechanism of the methacrylamide-treated silk fibers was investigated and analyzed on the basis of the results of infrared spectroscopy, amino acid analysis and scanning electron microscopy. From the results of these instrumental analyses, it can be suggested that polymerization mechanism about the methacrylamide-treated silk fibers is not performed by graft polymerization which has been accepted generally in styrene and methylmethacrylate-grafted silk fibers. The different mechanism is supposed to be due to the difference in monomer types, initiator types and treatment conditions.

• Journal of Sericultural and Entomological Science
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.142-146
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• 2013

The fluorescent proteins are generally denatured by heat treatment and thus lose their color. The normal reeling method includes processing by drying and cooking the cocoons near $100^{\circ}C$ before reeling. Therefore, the usual processing method cannot be used for making colored fluorescent silks. To develop a method that is applicable to producing transgenic silk without color loss, we develop reeling methods adequate for a recombinant fluorescence cocoons. It was found that the fluorescence cocoons keep their native color when dried at temperatures lower than $60^{\circ}C$ for 15 h. Also, a new cooking method to soften the fluorescent cocoons was developed: the cocoons were soaked in a solution of 0.2% sodium carbonate ($Na_2CO_3$)/0.1% nonionic surfactant (Triton X100) at $60^{\circ}C$ and then placed under vacuum. The repeated vacuum treatments enabled complete penetration of the solution into the cocoons, and the cocoons were thus homogenously softened and ready for reeling. In this state, the cooked cocoons can be reeled by an automated reeling machine. Our results suggest that drying and cooking of the cocoons at low temperature enables the subsequent reeling of the colored fluorescent silks by an automatic reeling machine without color loss and can produce silks that can be used for making higher value-added silk materials.