Rhipicephalus sanguineus sialotranscriptome

Using Illumina technology, we herein analyze the sialotranscriptome of R. sanguineus of adult female ticks at six different stages of feeding, and with three biological replicates. Uniquely, instead of grouping the different feeding stages by days of feeding, we grouped the ticks by their weight, as it is a better indicator of the physiological status of the tick feeding process. Using the coding sequences derived from the transcriptome assembly to form a database for proteomic studies, we pursued a proteome analysis of the salivary glands, which confirmed the sialome switching at the proteomic level, and with a high degree of agreement between transcriptome and proteome expression levels.