N. bombycis perturbed the silkworm serine protease cascade melanization pathway.

(A) Cluster diagram of the induced genes involved in the serine protease cascade melanization pathway. See Table S4 for a detailed view of the cluster ratios. (B) Measurement of the melanization speed of silkworm plasma. The silkworms were oral-infected by N. bombycis and hemolymph was collected at 10 dpi. The cell-free plasma was obtained and three replicates were performed. The averages represented the three replicates from one experiment and the error bars in the graph indicated the standard deviation (SD) value. Cont: Uninfected silkworm larvae. Exp: Silkworm treated with N. bombycis spores. Pht: phenylthiourea. (C) Transcriptional analysis of of N.b.serpins using RT-PCR. Nbserpin2 (SilkPathDB No. NBO_18g0004), Nbserpin6 (NBO_34g0030), Nbserpin9 (NBO_39i001), Nbserpin13 (NBO_124g0001), Nbserpin14 (NBO_372g0002), Nbserpin19 (NBO_1570g0002).