Systematic identification of smORFs in domestic silkworm (Bombyx mori)

Linrong Wan; Wenfu Xiao; Ziyan Huang; Anlian Zhou; Yaming Jiang; Bangxing Zou; Binbin Liu; Cao Deng; Youhong Zhang

doi:10.7717/peerj.14682

Systematic identification of smORFs in domestic silkworm (Bombyx mori)

PeerJ. 2023 Jan 13:11:e14682. doi: 10.7717/peerj.14682. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Linrong Wan^#^{1

2}, Wenfu Xiao^#¹, Ziyan Huang^{3

4}, Anlian Zhou¹, Yaming Jiang¹, Bangxing Zou¹, Binbin Liu¹, Cao Deng^{3

4}, Youhong Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ Sericultural Research Institute,Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanchong, Sichuan, China.
² College of Agronomy, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
³ Research and Development Center, LyuKang, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
⁴ Departments of Bioinformatics, DNA Stories Bioinformatics Center, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

The silkworm (Bombyx mori) is not only an excellent model species, but also an important agricultural economic insect. Taking it as the research object, its advantages of low maintenance cost and no biohazard risks are considered. Small open reading frames (smORFs) are an important class of genomic elements that can produce bioactive peptides. However, the smORFs in silkworm had been poorly identified and studied. To further study the smORFs in silkworm, systematic genome-wide identification is essential. Here, we identified and analyzed smORFs in the silkworm using comprehensive methods. Our results showed that at least 738 highly reliable smORFs were found in B. mori and that 34,401 possible smORFs were partially supported. We also identified some differentially expressed and tissue-specific-expressed smORFs, which may be closely related to the characteristics and functions of the tissues. This article provides a basis for subsequent research on smORFs in silkworm, and also hopes to provide a reference point for future research methods for smORFs in other species.

Keywords: Bombyx mori; Peptides; Tissue-specific; smORFs.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Bombyx* / genetics
Open Reading Frames / genetics
Phylogeny

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the China Agriculture Research System project (NO. CARS-18-SYZ19), the Sichuan Province ‘14th Five-Year Plan’ crop and livestock breeding projects (NO. 2021YFYZ0024) and the Sichuan Province Finance Independent Innovation project (NO. 2022ZZcx084). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.