The length of the fibroin gene in the Bombyx mori genome.

Radioactive anti-messenger DNA (3H-cDNA) complementary to silk fibroin mRNA has been synthesized using reverse transcriptase. This 3H-cDNA has been found to be a specific and sensitive probe for the detection of fibroin genes in the genome of Brombyx mori. Actinomycin-CsCl gradients give a large separation of the high GC fibroin genes from the bulk DNA. This density shift of fibroin genes has been measured as a function of DNA molecular weight. The data support a model in which a single high GC fibroin gene of 11.6 times 10-6 daltons is surrounded by at least 6 times 10-7 daltons of low GC DNA (30-39 percent). This finding, along with saturation hybridization studies (Suzuki, Gage, and Brown, 1972), demonstrate that the fibroin gene is present in a single copy per haploid genome.