Wilson, Seth; Taylor Adam; Bursell, Madeline; Frandsen, Paul; Stewart, Russell; Steeneck, Amy (Brigham Young University)
Faculty Advisor: Frandsen, Paul (Brigham Young University, Plant and Wildlife Sciences)
Caddisflies (Insecta: Trichoptera) have evolved to produce silk with adhesive and elastic properties in aqueous environments. The silk is used in several ways by different species within the order such as case making, retreat making and using the silk as an anchor in the stream. Previous research on caddisfly silk has focused on understanding the evolutionary changes in the H-fibroin gene, the main protein found in caddisfly silk, which underlies the structural transformation behind these phenotypic properties that allow for diverse usage of the silk across the order (Ashton et al. 2013). Understanding the genetic foundation of the silk is crucial to understanding the phenotypic interactions that determine the unique qualities of caddisfly silk. An accurate assembly of the caddisfly genome will allow us to resolve the H-fibroin gene that plays an integral role in the formation of the caddisfly silk. Next-generation sequencing, Oxford Nanopore, and PacBio will allow us to sequence long reads that can span repetitive regions of the genome. These regions have made it difficult to resolve the H-fibroin gene as there are many repetitive motifs found in the gene. We will combine this next-generation sequencing with second-generation sequencing, Illumina and Sanger Sequencing to optimize the assembly. In this study, we used a combination of next-generation sequencing technologies to assemble the complex H-Fibroin gene in order to look at the underlying genetic structure of the silk protein. We identified unique repetitive motifs in the gene that contribute to the silk's adhesive strength and elasticity when in aqueous environments.