Yongkang Wei, Yurong Li, Guozheng Zhang, Yeshun Zhang*
As a significant economic insect, silkworms have prominent advantages in life science, including low breeding cost, large progeny size, short growth cycle, and clear genetic background. Importantly, silkworms can provide abundant raw materials to prepare biomaterials for application in various fields, such as biomedicine, cell culture, cosmetics, and functional food. Silkworms can be divided into wild-type or silk fibroin-deficient mutants according to whether they synthesize and secrete silk fibroin. Here, we presented an overview of our silkworm varieties resources, especially silk fibroin-deficient mutant silkworms. Next, we optimized various extraction methods of sericin and summarized the characteristics and advantages of sericin. Finally, we developed a series of sericin-based biomaterials for promising applications to a diverse set of needs.