Dataset Information

Genome-wide tissue-specific gene expression, co-expression and regulation of co-expressed genes in adult nematode Ascaris suum.

ABSTRACT: Caenorhabditis elegans has traditionally been used as a model for studying nematode biology, but its small size limits the ability for researchers to perform some experiments such as high-throughput tissue-specific gene expression studies. However, the dissection of individual tissues is possible in the parasitic nematode Ascaris suum due to its relatively large size. Here, we take advantage of the recent genome sequencing of Ascaris suum and the ability to physically dissect its separate tissues to produce a wide-scale tissue-specific nematode RNA-seq datasets, including data on three non-reproductive tissues (head, pharynx, and intestine) in both male and female worms, as well as four reproductive tissues (testis, seminal vesicle, ovary, and uterus). We obtained fundamental information about the biology of diverse cell types and potential interactions among tissues within this multicellular organism.Overexpression and functional enrichment analyses identified many putative biological functions enriched in each tissue studied, including functions which have not been previously studied in detail in nematodes. Putative tissue-specific transcriptional factors and corresponding binding motifs that regulate expression in each tissue were identified, including the intestine-enriched ELT-2 motif/transcription factor previously described in nematode intestines. Constitutively expressed and novel genes were also characterized, with the largest number of novel genes found to be overexpressed in the testis. Finally, a putative acetylcholine-mediated transcriptional network connecting biological activity in the head to the male reproductive system is described using co-expression networks, along with a similar ecdysone-mediated system in the female.The expression profiles, co-expression networks and co-expression regulation of the 10 tissues studied and the tissue-specific analysis presented here are a valuable resource for studying tissue-specific biological functions in nematodes.

SUBMITTER: Rosa BA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3916258 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Genome-wide tissue-specific gene expression, co-expression and regulation of co-expressed genes in adult nematode Ascaris suum.

Rosa Bruce A BA Jasmer Douglas P DP Mitreva Makedonka M

PLoS neglected tropical diseases 20140206 2

<h4>Background</h4>Caenorhabditis elegans has traditionally been used as a model for studying nematode biology, but its small size limits the ability for researchers to perform some experiments such as high-throughput tissue-specific gene expression studies. However, the dissection of individual tissues is possible in the parasitic nematode Ascaris suum due to its relatively large size. Here, we take advantage of the recent genome sequencing of Ascaris suum and the ability to physically dissect ...[more]

PMID: 24516681

Similar Datasets

Project description:Over a billion people are infected by Ascaris spp. intestinal parasites. We investigated gene expression by various tissues of adult A. suum, and used that information to help resolve basic functions of these tissues, basic biology of parasitism and functional aspects of nematode genomes. The A. suum genome was sequenced and assembled to allow generation of microarray elements. Expression of over 40,000 60-mer elements was investigated in a variety of tissues from both male and female adult worms. Nearly 50 percent of the elements for which signal was detected exhibited differential expression among different tissues. The unique profile of transcripts identified for each tissue clarified functional distinctions among tissues, such as chitin binding in the ovary and peptidase activity in the intestines. Interestingly, hundreds of gender specific elements characterized female or male intestinal tissues, respectively. A. suum genes from the same family were frequently expressed differently among tissues. Transcript abundance for genes specific to A. suum, by comparison to Caenorhabditis elegans, varied to a greater extent among tissues than for genes conserved between A. suum and C. elegans. Analysis using C. elegans protein interaction data identified functional modules conserved between these two nematodes, resulting in identification of functional predictions of essential subnetworks of protein interactions and how these networks may vary among nematode tissues. A notable finding was very high module similarity between adult reproductive tissues and intestine. Our data identified gene and predicted protein determinants that distinguish functions of individual adult A. suum tissues as well those that likely serve all the tissues investigated in our study. The size of A. suum adults (30-40 cm compared to less than 1 cm for many nematodes) enabled this resolution and will facilitate experimental dissection of individual and interactive functions of these tissues in this and other parasitic nematodes.

Dataset Information

Genome-wide tissue-specific gene expression, co-expression and regulation of co-expressed genes in adult nematode Ascaris suum.

Publications

Genome-wide tissue-specific gene expression, co-expression and regulation of co-expressed genes in adult nematode Ascaris suum.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets