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Detection of Gut Microflora and Enzymes Using Metagenomics and Metaproteomics in Silkworm, Bombyx mori (Lepidoptera: Bombycidae)

Ponnusamy Mohanraj1, Chinnan Velmurugan Karthikeyan2*, C Aruchamy Mahalingam3, Sendha Venkatachary Krishnamoorthy1, Dananjeyan Balachandar1, Babu Ramanathan4

Microorganisms present in insect guts impart very important role in growth development and adaptation among the hosts. The identification of such microorganism in gut would provide new ways to develop products that would be important in industries and for pest management applications. In our present study, we employed a culture independent metagenomic approach in conjunction with metaproteomic profiling to enumerate the gut microbes in pure races and cross breeds of silkworm, Bombyx mori L. The phylogenetic analysis showed that the gut microflora was majorly grouped into four bacterial classes: Gamma proteobacteria, actinobacteria, cocci and bacilli. Two novel proteins in both silkworm races were identified and an additional three proteins were found to be differentially expressed among the races. In conclusion, silkworm undergoes morphological variations upon metamorphosis and studying this gut microflora will provide access to different genomes and the corresponding protein profiles. The results presented in this study would help identify the unknowns of silkworm gut microbiota and their importance in the silkworm.