Abstract
Schistosoma mansoni is the primary causative agent of schistosomiasis, which affects 200 million individuals in 74 countries. We generated 163,000 expressed-sequence tags (ESTs) from normalized cDNA libraries from six selected developmental stages of the parasite, resulting in 31,000 assembled sequences and 92% sampling of an estimated 14,000 gene complement. By analyzing automated Gene Ontology assignments, we provide a detailed view of important S. mansoni biological systems, including characterization of metazoa-specific and eukarya-conserved genes. Phylogenetic analysis suggests an early divergence from other metazoa. The data set provides insights into the molecular mechanisms of tissue organization, development, signaling, sexual dimorphism, host interactions and immune evasion and identifies novel proteins to be investigated as vaccine candidates and potential drug targets.
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Acknowledgements
E.D.N. thanks Associação Beneficente Alzira Denise Hertzog da Silva for financial support, D. Rollinson for providing schistosome isolates from Africa and Lebanon and M.G. dos Reis and N. Lucena for providing isolates from northeast Brazil. This project was financed by Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo and by the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico. The York schistosomiasis group received support from the Biology and Biotechnology Science Research Council, Wellcome Trust and the European Commission Research for Development Programme, Sector Health.
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Verjovski-Almeida, S., DeMarco, R., Martins, E. et al. Transcriptome analysis of the acoelomate human parasite Schistosoma mansoni. Nat Genet 35, 148–157 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng1237
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ng1237
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