Autoria: PROTASIO, A. V.; TSAI, I. J.; BABBAGE, A.; NICHOL, S.; HUNT, M.; ASLETT, M. A.; SILVA, N. de; VELARDE, G. S.; ANDERSON, T. J. C.; CLARK, R. C.; DAVIDSON, C.; DILLON, G. P.; HOLROYD, N. E.; LOVERDE, P. T.; LLOYD, C.; MCQUILLAN, J.; OLIVEIRA, G.; OTTO, T. D.; PARKER-MANUEL, S. J.; QUAIL, M. A.; WILSON, R. A.; ZERLOTINI, A.; DUNNE, D. W.; BERRIMAN, M.

Resumo: Schistosomiasis is one of the most prevalent parasitic diseases, affecting millions of people in developing countries. Amongst the human-infective species, Schistosoma mansoni is also the most commonly used in the laboratory and here we present the systematic improvement of its draft genome. We used Sanger capillary and deep-coverage Illumina sequencing from clonal worms to upgrade the highly fragmented draft 380 Mb genome to one with only 885 scaffolds and more than 81% of the bases organised into chromosomes. We have also used transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) from four time points in the parasite?s life cycle to refine gene predictions and profile their expression. More than 45% of predicted genes have been extensively modified and the total number has been reduced from 11,807 to 10,852. Using the new version of the genome, we identified trans-splicing events occurring in at least 11% of genes and identified clear cases where it is used to resolve polycistronic transcripts. We have produced a high-resolution map of temporal changes in expression for 9,535 genes, covering an unprecedented dynamic range for this organism. All of these data have been consolidated into a searchable format within the GeneDB (http://www.genedb.org) and SchistoDB (http://www.schistodb.net) databases. With further transcriptional profiling and genome sequencing increasingly accessible, the upgraded genome will form a fundamental dataset to underpin further advances in schistosome research.

Ano de publicação: 2012

Tipo de publicação: Artigo de periódico

Unidade: Embrapa Agricultura Digital

Palavras-chave: Schistosoma