Genomics of the tick synganglia in reproduction and development

An expressed sequence tag library of American dog tick (Dermacentor variabilis) synganglia of virgin and mated females from multiple feeding stages was sequenced by massively parallel pyrosequencing. A total of 532,136 reads representing a total of 113 Mb of sequence data were obtained on a Roche/454 Life Sciences GS FLX sequencer. The reads were assembled into 21,112 contiguous sequences. An overview of gene ontology data will be discussed to highlight the major groups of identified genes. Several putative hormones and neuropeptides as well as other key families of genes have been identified and are under study; progress on our analyses will be discussed. Comparisons of these transcripts with available protein data, acarine ESTs and the recently available Ixodes scapularis genome will be presented.