Abstract
Benjamin Voight and colleagues report the annotated genome of the golden orb-weaver spider. They describe 28 spider silk genes (spidroins), characterize their expression in distinct silk gland types and identify non-spidroin genes with expression patterns suggesting potential roles in silk production.
Highlights
More than 380 million years of evolution have produced >46,000 extant spider species, exhibiting an incredible diversity of silks used for prey capture and reproduction[1,2,3]
The silk classes of a typical ‘gluey silk’ orb-weaver (Araneoidea) female include (i) major ampullate silk, which exhibits great tensile strength and is employed in draglines, bridgelines, and web radii[11,12]; (ii) minor ampullate silk, used for inelastic temporary spirals during web building[11,12]; (iii) cement-like piriform silk that bonds fibers together and to other substrates[13,14]; (iv) strong, yet flexible aciniform silk used for prey wrapping and egg case insulation[15]; (v) tubuliform and cylindriform silk that constitutes the tough outer layer of egg cases[16,17]; (vi) flagelliform silk that exhibits unparalleled extensibility and is used in the capture spiral[18,19]; and (vii) the viscous and sticky aggregate silk that aids in prey capture[20,21,22,23,24]
Using quantitative expression analysis of the 28 N. clavipes spidroins in this spider’s morphologically distinct silk glands, we have examined the idea that spiders have evolved multiple types of silk glands that produce unique combinations of silk proteins, usually with one or two spidroins dominating[38,39,40,41] (Supplementary Fig. 1b)
Summary
More than 380 million years of evolution have produced >46,000 extant spider species, exhibiting an incredible diversity of silks used for prey capture and reproduction[1,2,3]. Each species possesses an assortment of specialized gland types that are thought to produce distinct classes of silks to fit specific needs[9,26,27]. Owing to the challenges of assembling arrays of repeats, several of the S. mimosarum spidroin sequences are incomplete, without the sequences encoding N- and C-terminal domains anchored on a single scaffold[10,11,12]. This cribellate-sheetweb-building spider lacks the flagelliform and aggregate silks found in orb webs, limiting the diversity of spidroin sequences cataloged from a single
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
