Toxicological evaluation of transgenic silkworms

Safety of transgenic silkworms must be evaluated before their commercial application. We assessed subacute toxicity using a 28-day feeding study in rats. Eighty rats were evenly allocated into four groups, with each group containing 10 male and 10 female rats. Rats of three groups were fed dried transgenic silkworm H19.9A pupae with overexpressed endogenous Bmhsp19.9, transgenic silkworm A4SOR pupae with overexpressed exogenous SOR, or normal silkworm pupae at a dose of 3.0 g/kg/day, respectively. The fourth group served as a normal feeding control. The body weight, feed consumption, hematology response variables, serum biochemical parameters, organ weights, gross necropsy, and histopathologic of animals were evaluated. No mortality, adverse effects, or major differences in the evaluated parameters were observed in the groups fed transgenic pupae in comparison with the control, suggesting that transgenic silkworms are toxicologically equivalent to normal silkworms and are safe for consumption in rats.