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Analysis of German cockroach (Blattella germanica) expressed sequence tags

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Abstract

Cockroaches are known to act not only as vectors for parasites and pathogenic microorganisms but also as intermediate hosts for parasite development and allergens. It is necessary to understand genomic information to obtain ecological knowledge of the cockroach as well as to more effectively engineer genetic cockroach control, in addition to developing allergy medications and analyzing the allergen. We constructed a cDNA library of German cockroach Blattella germanica (Orthoptera: Blattellidae) and generated 5,466 clones expressed by EST sequences analysis. A total of 3,937 sequences were identified by a BLAST search against the NCBI nr database under an E-value of <1e−5 using BLASTX programs. The database of Clusters of Orthologous Groups of proteins was used to attempt a functional study with an E-value of <1e−10, which resulted in 2,833 significant sequence matches. We identified several kinds of allergens, proteases, serine proteases, serine protease inhibitors, stress-related proteins, immune response-related proteins, and a variety of other genes. This genomic data can provide essential information about cockroaches, including data on metamorphosis, metabolism, and intracellular signaling. This genomic information of the German cockroach can also supply knowledge for cockroach control and allergen analysis as well as genome comparison among similar species.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by a grant from Kosin University College of Medicine research (2013). This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea, funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2009-0073975). We also appreciate the use of the system development for application of genomic sequence information program supported by the Korea government (MEST).

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Correspondence to Meesun Ock.

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Jeong, J.E., Hwang, H.J., Park, H.S. et al. Analysis of German cockroach (Blattella germanica) expressed sequence tags. Genes Genom 37, 271–280 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13258-014-0247-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13258-014-0247-0

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