BMC Genomics Research article BioMed Central Open Access An annotated cDNA library of juvenile Euprymna scolopes with and without colonization by the symbiont Vibrio fischeri Carlene K Chun†1, Todd E Scheetz†2,3, Maria de Fatima Bonaldo9, Bartley Brown5, Anik Clemens10, Wendy J Crookes-Goodson1, Keith Crouch4, Tad DeMartini10, Mari Eyestone4, Michael S Goodson1, Bernadette Janssens10, Jennifer L Kimbell10, Tanya A Koropatnick10, Tamara Kucaba4, Christina Smith9, Jennifer J Stewart10, Deyan Tong1, Joshua V Troll1, Sarahrose Webster4, Jane Winhall-Rice10, Cory Yap10, Thomas L Casavant2,3,5, Margaret J McFall-Ngai1,10 and M Bento Soares*4,6,7,8,9 Address: 1Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA, 2Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA, 3Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA, 4Department of Pediatrics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA, 5Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA, 6Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA, 7Department of Orthopaedics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA, 8Physiology and Biophysics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA, 9Children's Memorial Research Center, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, 60614, USA and 10Pacific Biomedical Research Center, Kewalo Marine Laboratory, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, 96813, USA Email: Carlene K Chun - cchun@wisc.edu; Todd E Scheetz - todd-scheetz@uiowa.edu; Maria de Fatima Bonaldo - mbonaldo@childrensmemorial.org; Bartley Brown - bbrown@eng.uiowa.edu; Anik Clemens - anikclemens@yahoo.com; Wendy J Crookes-Goodson - wendy.goodson@wpafb.af.mil; Keith Crouch - keith-crouch@uiowa.edu; Tad DeMartini - tad_demartini@yahoo.com; Mari Eyestone - mari-scheetz@uiowa.edu; Michael S Goodson - mgoodson@wisc.edu; Bernadette Janssens - janssens@hawaii.edu; Jennifer L Kimbell - jkimbell@hawaii.edu; Tanya A Koropatnick - koropatn@hawaii.edu; Tamara Kucaba - tamara-kucaba@uiowa.edu; Christina Smith - chsmith@childrensmemorial.org; Jennifer J Stewart - jstewart@snblusa.com; Deyan Tong - vivitone@yahoo.com.cn; Joshua V Troll - jvtroll@wisc.edu; Sarahrose Webster - sarah-r-schneider@uiowa.edu; Jane Winhall- Rice - winhallr@hawaii.edu; Cory Yap - coryy@hawaii.edu; Thomas L Casavant - tom-casavant@uiowa.edu; Margaret J McFall- Ngai - mjmcfallngai@wisc.edu; M Bento Soares* - MBSoares@childrensmemorial.org * Corresponding author †Equal contributors Published: 16 June 2006 BMC Genomics 2006, 7:154 doi:10.1186/1471-2164-7-154 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/7/154 Received: 10 May 2006 Accepted: 16 June 2006 © 2006 Chun et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Biologists are becoming increasingly aware that the interaction of animals, including humans, with their coevolved bacterial partners is essential for health. This growing awareness has been a driving force for the development of models for the study of beneficial animal-bacterial interactions. In the squid-vibrio model, symbiotic Vibrio fischeri induce dramatic developmental changes in the light organ of host Euprymna scolopes over the first hours to days of their partnership. We report here the creation of a juvenile light-organ specific EST database. Results: We generated eleven cDNA libraries from the light organ of E. scolopes at developmentally significant time points with and without colonization by V. fischeri. Single pass 3' sequencing efforts generated 42,564 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) of which 35,421 passed our quality criteria and were then clustered via the UIcluster program into 13,962 nonredundant sequences. The cDNA clones representing these nonredundant sequences were sequenced from the 5' Page 1 of 10 (page number not for citation purposes)