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Publications (34)
Molecular studies of the secretory glands involved in spider silk production have revealed candidate genes for silk synthesis and a complicated history of spider silk gene evolution. However, differential gene expression profiles of the multiple silk gland types within an individual orb-web weaving spider are lacking. Each of these gland types prod...
Most spiders spin multiple types of silk, including silks for reproduction, prey capture, and draglines. Spiders are a megadiverse group and the majority of spider silks remain uncharacterized. For example, nothing is known about the silk molecules of Tengella perfuga, a spider that spins sheet webs lined with cribellar silk. Cribellar silk is a ty...
Maximum likelihood tree of spidroin N-terminal regions.
Shaded boxes indicate spidroin types as in Fig 1. Tree rooted with California trapdoor spider Bothriocyrtum californicum fibroin 1 (not shown). Bootstrap percentages ≥ 50% are shown. Scale bar represents substitutions per site.
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Tengella perfuga spidroins.
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Spidroin repetitive sequences of Tengella perfuga.
(A) Repetitive sequence adjacent to N-terminal region. (B) Repetitive sequence adjacent to C-terminal region. Spidroin names abbreviated as in S2 Table. Amino acids abundant in silks are highlighted: alanine (red), serine (blue), and glycine (green). Pyriform amino acid motifs indicated in boxes. T...
Summary of Tengella perfuga de novo transcriptome assembly.
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Spidroin sequences from GenBank used in phylogenetic analyses.
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The silk glands of the Western black widow Latrodectus hesperus Chamberlin & Ivie, 1935 are morphologically and functionally distinct. Studies of spider silk glands often show only high magnification images of sections or drawings of glands, making differentiation of dissected glands difficult. We dissect all of the gland types from L. hesperus fem...
Spider silk synthesis is an emerging model for the evolution of tissue-specific gene expression and the role of gene duplication in functional novelty, but its potential has not been fully realized. Accordingly, we quantified transcript (mRNA) abundance in seven silk gland types and three non-silk gland tissues for three cobweb-weaving spider speci...
Spiders swath their eggs with silk to protect developing embryos and hatchlings. Egg case silks, like other fibrous spider silks, are primarily composed of proteins called spidroins (spidroin = spider-fibroin). Silks, and thus spidroins, are important throughout the lives of spiders, yet the evolution of spidroin genes has been relatively understud...
Spiders (order Araneae) rely on their silks for essential tasks, such as dispersal, prey capture, and reproduction. Spider silks are largely composed of spidroins, members of a protein family that are synthesized in silk glands. As needed, silk stored in silk glands is extruded through spigots on the spinnerets. Nearly all studies of spider silks h...
Orb-web weaving spiders produce a variety of task-specific silks from specialized silk glands. The genetics underlying the synthesis of specific silk types are largely unknown, and transcriptome analysis could be a powerful approach for identifying candidate genes. However, de novo assembly and expression profiling of silk glands with RNA-sequencin...
Spider silk research has largely focused on spidroins, proteins that are the primary components of spider silk fibers. Although a number of spidroins have been characterized, other types of proteins associated with silk synthesis are virtually unknown. Previous analyses of tissue-specific RNAseq libraries identified 647 predicted genes that were di...
Spider silks are spectacular examples of phenotypic diversity arising from adaptive molecular evolution. An individual spider can produce an array of specialized silks, with the majority of constituent silk proteins encoded by members of the spidroin gene family. Spidroins are dominated by tandem repeats flanked by short, non-repetitive N- and C-te...
Cells are the principal component of tissues and can drive morphogenesis through dynamic changes in structure and interaction. During gastrulation, the primary morphogenetic event of early development, cells change shape, exchange neighbors, and migrate long distances to establish cell layers that will form the tissues of the adult animal. Outside...
INTRODUCTION
The great diversity of arthropod body plans, together with our detailed understanding of fruit fly development, makes arthropods a premier taxon for examining the evolutionary diversification of developmental patterns and hence the diversity of extant life. Crustaceans, in particular, show a remarkable range of morphologies and provide...
INTRODUCTION
The great diversity of arthropod body plans, together with our detailed understanding of fruit fly development, makes arthropods a premier taxon for examining the evolutionary diversification of developmental patterns and hence the diversity of extant life. Crustaceans, in particular, show a remarkable range of morphologies and provide...
INTRODUCTION
The great diversity of arthropod body plans, together with our detailed understanding of fruit fly development, makes arthropods a premier taxon for examining the evolutionary diversification of developmental patterns and hence the diversity of extant life. Crustaceans, in particular, show a remarkable range of morphologies and provide...
INTRODUCTION
The great diversity of arthropod body plans, together with our detailed understanding of fruit fly development, makes arthropods a premier taxon for examining the evolutionary diversification of developmental patterns and hence the diversity of extant life. Crustaceans, in particular, show a remarkable range of morphologies and provide...
INTRODUCTION
The great diversity of arthropod body plans, together with our detailed understanding of fruit fly development, makes arthropods a premier taxon for examining the evolutionary diversification of developmental patterns and hence the diversity of extant life. Crustaceans, in particular, show a remarkable range of morphologies and provide...
The cell movements of gastrulation were analyzed in embryos of the spider Zygiella x-notata, using time-lapse video, cell tracing, and improved histology. Cells are internalized near the center of the germ disc in three distinct phases. First, cumulus mesenchyme cells ingress and migrate as a group beneath the superficial layer. Second, mass intern...
