Antheraea mylitta is one of the wild nonmulberry silkworms, which produces tasar silk. An EST project has been undertaken to understand the gene expression profile of A. mylitta silk gland. Two cDNA libraries, one from the whole bodies of one-day-old larvae and the other from the silkglands of fifth instar larvae, were constructed and sequenced. A total of 2476 good-quality ESTs (1239 clones) were obtained and grouped into 648 clusters containing 390 contigs and 258 singletons to represent 467 potential unigenes. Forty-five sequences contained putative coding region, and represented potentially novel genes. Among the 648 clusters, 241 were categorized according to Gene Ontology hierarchy and showed presence of several silk and immune-related genes. The A. mylitta ESTs have been organized into a freely available online database “AmyBASE”. These data provide an initial insight into the A. mylitta transcriptome and help to understand the molecular mechanism of silk protein production in a Lepidopteran species.

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Continent cutaneous urinary diversion pouches are prone to complications like stoma blockage by mucus, metabolic derangements, infection, renal derangements and urolithiasis. Pouch urolithiasis is not uncommon, but presentation of a huge stone burden is rare. We report a case of giant pouch stones in a continent pouch which was a surgical challenge. We also highlight the need for adequate hydration, pouch irrigation and drainage by clean intermittent catheterization and regular follow-up, to prevent such a condition from arising.