Silkworm as an experimental animal to research for fungal infections.

Silkworm, Bombyx mori, has various advantages as an experimental animal, such as low cost for rearing and a small ethical problem. Silkworm infection models with pathogenic bacteria have been established for identification of genes encoding virulence factors by a large-scale in vivo screening. In this review, we describe recent progress for the study of silkworm infection models for elucidating the mechanisms of fungi infection. The silkworm infection models have been established for Candida albicans, Candida tropicalis, Candida glabrata, and Cryptococcus neoformans, which are yeast type fungi, and Aspergillus fumigatus, Arthroderma vanbreuseghemii, Arthroderma benhamiae, Microsporum canis, Trichophyton rubrum, and Rhizopus oryzae, which are filamentous fungi. Novel genes encoding virulence factors in C. albicans and C. glabrata are succeeded to identify by using the silkworm infection models. We outline benefits to use the silkworm infection models and a strategy to identify of responsible genes for pathogenicity of microorganisms such as fungi.