title: Pyrosequencing-based expression profiling and identification of differentially regulated genes from Manduca sexta, a lepidopteran model insect with unknown genome sequence
organism: Manduca sexta
description: We report the development of a simple method to discover immunity-related genes partly based on changes in their relative transcript abundances in M. sexta larvae before and after a bacterial injection and characterize genes based on their tissue-preferential expression patterns in fat body and hemocytes. Instead of relying on a priori knowledge of the genome, our approach contributes to future genome annotation, cDNA cloning, and protein identification in this insect and it also provides useful leads for functional elucidation of unknown defense proteins in this biochemical model insect. More importantly, this method is applicable to gene discovery and study of process/tissue-related transcriptome changes in all non-model species with no known genome sequences.