Novel Insights into the Transcriptome ofDirofilaria Immitis
Fu Y, Lan J, Zhang Z, Hou R, Wu X, Yang D, Zhang R, Zheng W, Nie H, Xie Y, Yan N, Yang Z, Wang C, Luo L, Liu L, Gu X, Wang S, Peng X, Yang G.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:The heartwormDirofilaria immitisis the causal agent of cardiopulmonary dirofilariosis in dogs and cats, and also infects a wide range of wild mammals as well as humans. One bottleneck for the design of fundamentally new intervention and management strategies againstD.immitismay be the currently limited knowledge of fundamental molecular aspects ofD.immitis.
METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:A next-generation sequencing platform combining computational approaches was employed to assess a global view of the heartwormtranscriptome. A total of 20,810 unigenes (mean length = 1,270 bp) were assembled from 22.3 million clean reads. From these, 15,698 coding sequences (CDS) were inferred, and about 85% of the unigenes had orthologs/homologs in public databases. Comparative transcriptomic study uncovered 4,157 filarial-specific genes as well as 3,795 genes potentially involved in filarial-Wolbachia symbiosis. In addition, the potential intestinetranscriptomeofD.immitis(1,101 genes) was mined for the first time, which might help to discover 'hidden antigens'.
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:This study providesnovelinsightsinto thetranscriptomeofD.immitisand sheds light on its molecular processes and survival mechanisms. Furthermore, it provides a platform to discover new vaccine candidates and potential targets for new drugs against dirofilariosis.
Copyright ©2012 Fu et al.
PLoS One.2012;7(7):e41639. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0041639. Epub 2012 Jul 23.
Read full text:http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0041639#pone-0041639-g005
