RESUMO
Pupae from the Chinese wild mulberry silkworm, Bombyx mandarina, and 11 representative strains of the domesticated silkworm, Bombyx mori were selected for preparation of mitochondrial DNA. The 5'-end fragments of cytochrome b genes (Cytb) were generated by polymerase chain reaction products and sequenced directly. The homologous sequences of the Japanese B. mandarina and three strains of B. mori were from the GenBank database. The sequences of the 16 silkworm strains were analysed with DNASTAR software and a phylogenic tree was constructed using PHYLIP software. The result showed that: (i) The sequence divergence between the strains of B. mori and the Japanese B. mandarina was larger (5.4%-5.8%) compared with that between strains of B. mori and the Chinese B. mandarina (0.8% -1.9%). Analysis of clustering also showed that the sequences of B. mori strains and Chinese B. mandarina clustered into group (B group), while that of Japanese B. mandarina (A group) was outside this cluster. This may be evidence for the hypothesis that B. mori originated from Chinese B. mandarina. (ii) Among 14 strains of B. mori, sequence divergence was small and the most divergence was seen between strains Yanhe-1 and Chuxiong, whose sequences branched off from those of the other B. mori strains on the phylogenetic tree. From this and from historical records, we infer that the strains Yanhe-1 and Chuxiong originated independently from southwest China.