Abstract
The dpp gene originated from the silkworms is an important gene that is well conserved in the genome of humans, cattle, rodents, poultry and Drosophila. The dpp gene belonging to the TGF-beta (Transforming Growth Factor-beta) superfamily is known to play an important role in several developmental stages. The $TGF-{\beta}$ gene family is a genetically well-conserved and playing an important role gene family in various species such as determining cell proliferation and differentiation, apoptosis and cell fate. In this review, we have confirmed the following studies data. The recent studies on the silkworm dpp gene have confirmed for the first time the biological functions such as promoting osteogenesis activity. In addition, previous data shows that dpp have developmental functions such as morphogenetic materials at the blastophyllum stage, induction of the mesoblast at the late embryonic stage and involved in the proliferation and morphogenesis of imaginal disc in adult development. We found the splice variant of the dpp gene originated from the wildtype silkworm by using comparative genomics. It has provided important data for basic research based on genetics studies of these processes may promote a better understanding of evolution. Silkworm is a medicinal insect and is approved for its safety. It is used as a natural antibiotic for promoting growth as a medical material, a health functional food, and a feed additive. Therefore, it is necessary to present various data to obtain more value of functional insect.
