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The common house spider, Parasteatoda tepidariorum, maintains silk gene expression on sub-optimal diet
Cobweb weaving spiders and their relatives spin multiple task-specific fiber types. The unique material properties of each silk type result from differences in amino acid sequence and structure of their component proteins, primarily spidroins (spider fibrous proteins). Amino acid content and gene ex...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2020
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7725297/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33296374 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237286 |
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author | Miller, Jeremy Vienneau-Hathaway, Jannelle Dendev, Enkhbileg Lan, Merrina Ayoub, Nadia A. |
author_facet | Miller, Jeremy Vienneau-Hathaway, Jannelle Dendev, Enkhbileg Lan, Merrina Ayoub, Nadia A. |
author_sort | Miller, Jeremy |
collection | PubMed |
description | Cobweb weaving spiders and their relatives spin multiple task-specific fiber types. The unique material properties of each silk type result from differences in amino acid sequence and structure of their component proteins, primarily spidroins (spider fibrous proteins). Amino acid content and gene expression measurements of spider silks suggest some spiders change expression patterns of individual protein components in response to environmental cues. We quantified mRNA abundance of three spidroin encoding genes involved in prey capture in the common house spider, Parasteatoda tepidariorum (Theridiidae), fed different diets. After 10 days of acclimation to the lab on a diet of mealworms, spiders were split into three groups: (1) individuals were immediately dissected, (2) spiders were fed high-energy crickets, or (3) spiders were fed low-energy flies, for 1 month. All spiders gained mass during the acclimation period and cricket-fed spiders continued to gain mass, while fly-fed spiders either maintained or lost mass. Using quantitative PCR, we found no significant differences in the absolute or relative abundance of dragline gene transcripts, major ampullate spidroin 1 (MaSp1) and major ampullate spidroin 2 (MaSp2), among groups. In contrast, prey-wrapping minor ampullate spidroin (MiSp) gene transcripts were significantly less abundant in fly-fed than lab-acclimated spiders. However, when measured relative to Actin, cricket-fed spiders showed the lowest expression of MiSp. Our results suggest that house spiders are able to maintain silk production, even in the face of a low-quality diet. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7725297 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-77252972020-12-16 The common house spider, Parasteatoda tepidariorum, maintains silk gene expression on sub-optimal diet Miller, Jeremy Vienneau-Hathaway, Jannelle Dendev, Enkhbileg Lan, Merrina Ayoub, Nadia A. PLoS One Research Article Cobweb weaving spiders and their relatives spin multiple task-specific fiber types. The unique material properties of each silk type result from differences in amino acid sequence and structure of their component proteins, primarily spidroins (spider fibrous proteins). Amino acid content and gene expression measurements of spider silks suggest some spiders change expression patterns of individual protein components in response to environmental cues. We quantified mRNA abundance of three spidroin encoding genes involved in prey capture in the common house spider, Parasteatoda tepidariorum (Theridiidae), fed different diets. After 10 days of acclimation to the lab on a diet of mealworms, spiders were split into three groups: (1) individuals were immediately dissected, (2) spiders were fed high-energy crickets, or (3) spiders were fed low-energy flies, for 1 month. All spiders gained mass during the acclimation period and cricket-fed spiders continued to gain mass, while fly-fed spiders either maintained or lost mass. Using quantitative PCR, we found no significant differences in the absolute or relative abundance of dragline gene transcripts, major ampullate spidroin 1 (MaSp1) and major ampullate spidroin 2 (MaSp2), among groups. In contrast, prey-wrapping minor ampullate spidroin (MiSp) gene transcripts were significantly less abundant in fly-fed than lab-acclimated spiders. However, when measured relative to Actin, cricket-fed spiders showed the lowest expression of MiSp. Our results suggest that house spiders are able to maintain silk production, even in the face of a low-quality diet. Public Library of Science 2020-12-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7725297/ /pubmed/33296374 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237286 Text en © 2020 Miller et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Miller, Jeremy Vienneau-Hathaway, Jannelle Dendev, Enkhbileg Lan, Merrina Ayoub, Nadia A. The common house spider, Parasteatoda tepidariorum, maintains silk gene expression on sub-optimal diet |
title | The common house spider, Parasteatoda tepidariorum, maintains silk gene expression on sub-optimal diet |
title_full | The common house spider, Parasteatoda tepidariorum, maintains silk gene expression on sub-optimal diet |
title_fullStr | The common house spider, Parasteatoda tepidariorum, maintains silk gene expression on sub-optimal diet |
title_full_unstemmed | The common house spider, Parasteatoda tepidariorum, maintains silk gene expression on sub-optimal diet |
title_short | The common house spider, Parasteatoda tepidariorum, maintains silk gene expression on sub-optimal diet |
title_sort | common house spider, parasteatoda tepidariorum, maintains silk gene expression on sub-optimal diet |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7725297/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33296374 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237286 |
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