Identification and Amplification of a Novel Egg Case Silk Gene In Latrodectus hesperus
Poster Number
15
Format
Poster Presentation
Abstract/Artist Statement
Spider silks are characteristically strong and elastic. The potential of using spider silk for various industrial applications is enormous once mass production of spider silk becomes possible. Made by seven different glands of certain orb-weaving spiders, multiple types of silk are produced with unique chemical and mechanical properties. The seven glands are the major ampullate, minor ampullate, flagelliform, pyriform, aciniform, aggregate, and tubuliform glands. In this experiment, degenerate oligonucleotides were designed based on the peptide fragments obtained from tryptic digestion of Strong-1, a large molecular weight protein identified to be a major component of Latrodectus hesperus egg case silk. We are currently screening a cDNA library using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to amplify pieces of the gene corresponding to Strong-1. Results will be discussed.
Location
Callison Hall
Start Date
6-5-2006 10:00 AM
End Date
6-5-2006 12:00 PM
Identification and Amplification of a Novel Egg Case Silk Gene In Latrodectus hesperus
Callison Hall
Spider silks are characteristically strong and elastic. The potential of using spider silk for various industrial applications is enormous once mass production of spider silk becomes possible. Made by seven different glands of certain orb-weaving spiders, multiple types of silk are produced with unique chemical and mechanical properties. The seven glands are the major ampullate, minor ampullate, flagelliform, pyriform, aciniform, aggregate, and tubuliform glands. In this experiment, degenerate oligonucleotides were designed based on the peptide fragments obtained from tryptic digestion of Strong-1, a large molecular weight protein identified to be a major component of Latrodectus hesperus egg case silk. We are currently screening a cDNA library using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to amplify pieces of the gene corresponding to Strong-1. Results will be discussed.