Insect salivary secretions may be a key element in understanding insect-plant interactions. Salivary proteins directly interact with plant tissues, eliciting responses which may benefit the insect. In an effort to isolate and identify key components in salivary secretions, we isolated total RNA from 100 pairs of carefully dissected glands. A PCR based cDNA library was made using Clontech's SMART cDNA library construction kit. Four hundred randomly selected cDNA clones were sequenced. Using BLAST, we grouped these sequences into 285 sets of essentially identical sequences, or clots. About 40% of the clots matched clearly to proteins of known function in other species. Of these, 80% had their top matches to a insect protein. Among our cDNAs, we have tentatively identified oxido-reductases and hydrolases that may be involved in the insect's attack on plant tissue. Several have been selected for further study. We hope to contribute, through these ongoing studies, to a better understanding of the role of salivary proteins in insect-plant interaction.
Species 1: Homoptera Aphididae Acyrthosiphon pisum (pea aphid)
Keywords: cDNA
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