Patella_vulgata_transcriptome_annotation.xlsx

The common limpet, Patella vulgata, has been shown to produce the strongest known biological material. The teeth of the radula, a tongue-like organ used to scrape algae off rocky surfaces, have a tensile strength greater than spider silk and comparable to man-made carbon fibres. Here, we generate a complete transcriptome resource for the common limpet from three main tissues; the main muscle of the foot of the limpet, the radula Formation Zone, and the radula itself (subdivided into 4 segments supporting distinct stages of tooth development). We generated 871,497,501 paired-end reads and assembled into a transcriptome of 464,975 transcripts with an N50 score of 994 bp and an Ex90N50 score of 1,553 bp. Analysis of transcriptome completeness identified presence of 97.6 % of metazoan universal single copy orthologs. The filtered Patella vulgata transcriptome consists of 36,806 high-confidence transcripts representing 16,100 genes. This resource represents a profile of the transcriptome of the radula, and in particular the unique transcripts involved with the unique developmental stages of the limpet tooth formation.