Silk remarkable mechanical properties, comparative biocompatibility, tunable degradation rates "in vitro" and "in vivo", the ease to load cellular growth factors (for example, BMP-2), and the ability to be processed into several other formats such as films, gels, particles, and scaffolds. Silks from "Bombyx mori", a kind of cultivated silkworm, are the most widely investigated silks. Silks derived from "Bombyx mori" are generally made of two parts: the silk fibroin fiber which contains a light chain of 25kDa and a heavy chain of 350kDa (or 390kDa) linked by a single disulfide bond and a glue-like protein, sericin, comprising 25 to 30
Bombyx mandarina differ in karyotype from those of inland China. Domestic silkmoths are closer to the latter regarding mtDNA sequence data, and especially lack some genetic apomorphies of the northeastern "B. mandarina". Thus, the initial domestic stock came from inland China. "B. mandarina" is able to hybridize with "B. mori". Both in the wild and in a domesticated environment, females release pheromones and wait for males to be attracted and fly to them. However, "B. mori" males cannot fly. Hybridisation in the wild, therefore, inevitably means breeding between domestic ("B. mori") females and wild ("B. mandarina") males. Hybridization is possible in both