To determine differential gene expression profiles in the salivary gland of a water stick-insect, Ranatra chinensis Mayrt, a subtractive cDNA library was constructed by suppression subtractive hybridization. The salivary gland was determined among three salivary gland-like tissues by investigating transcription levels of five trypsin genes isolated from R. chinensis. The major transcripts encoding trypsins (64.4% of the total ESTs) were eliminated from the library and then remaining salivary gland-specific genes were searched. A total of 643 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) were clustered and assembled into 148 contigs (49 multiple sequences and 99 singletons), among which 35 contigs had matched BLASTx hits (E ≤ 1.00E-4). Salivary apyrase occupied 5.6% (36 ESTs) of the library. Apyrase is known to be released by female mosquitoes or blood-sucking assassin bugs to prevent blood clots during blood sucking. Therefore, apyrase in the salivary of R. chinensis might allow R. chinensis to facilitate feeding. Several contigs encoding acid phosphatase, hyaluronidase, prophenoloxidase, and dipeptidylpeptidase IV, commonly found in venoms of Hymenoptera, were also identified from the salivary gland-specific library. Discovery of salivary glandspecific genes should promote further studies on biologically active components in the saliva of R. chinensis.