Golden orb-weaving spider (Trichonephila clavipes) silk genes with sex-biased expression and atypical architectures.

ABSTRACT: Spider silks are renowned for their high-performance mechanical properties. Contributing to these properties are proteins encoded by the spidroin (spider fibroin) gene family. Spidroins have been discovered mostly through cDNA studies of females based on the presence of conserved terminal regions and a repetitive central region. Recently, genome sequencing of the golden orb-web weaver, Trichonephila clavipes, provided a complete picture of spidroin diversity. Here, we refine the annotation of T. clavipes spidroin genes including the reclassification of some as non-spidroins. We rename these non-spidroins as spidroin-like (SpL) genes because they have repetitive sequences and amino acid compositions like spidroins, but entirely lack the archetypal terminal domains of spidroins. Insight into

SUBMITTER: Correa-Garhwal SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8022711 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature