Analysis and functional annotation of expressed sequence tags from the fall armyworm Spodoptera frugiperda.
BACKGROUND
Little is known about the genome sequences of lepidopteran insects, although this group of insects has been studied extensively in the fields of endocrinology, development, immunity, and pathogen-host interactions. In addition, cell lines derived from Spodoptera frugiperda and other lepidopteran insects are routinely used for baculovirus foreign gene expression. This study reports the results of an expressed sequence tag (EST) sequencing project in cells from the lepidopteran insect S. frugiperda, the fall armyworm.


RESULTS
We have constructed an EST database using two cDNA libraries from the S. frugiperda-derived cell line, SF-21. The database consists of 2,367 ESTs which were assembled into 244 contigs and 951 singlets for a total of 1,195 unique sequences.


CONCLUSIONS
S. frugiperda is an agriculturally important pest insect and genomic information will be instrumental for establishing initial transcriptional profiling and gene function studies, and for obtaining information about genes manipulated during infections by insect pathogens such as baculoviruses.
Deng
Youping
Y
Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Program, Division of Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, USA. youping.deng@usm.edu
Dong
Yinghua
Y
Thodima
Venkata
V
Clem
Rollie J
RJ
Passarelli
A Lorena
AL
D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D019295:Computational Biology; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D015723:Gene Library; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D018411:Spodoptera / Q000235:genetics*
D018076:DNA, Complementary