Dataset Information

Comparative Transcriptome Analyses of Schistosoma japonicum Derived From SCID Mice and BALB/c Mice: Clues to the Abnormality in Parasite Growth and Development.

ABSTRACT: Schistosomiasis, caused by the parasitic flatworms called schistosomes, remains one of the most prevailing parasitic diseases in the world. The prodigious oviposition of female worms after maturity is the main driver of pathology due to infection, yet our understanding about the regulation of development and reproduction of schistosomes is limited. Here, we comparatively profiled the transcriptome of Schistosoma japonicum recovered from SCID and BALB/c mice, which were collected 35 days post-infection, when prominent morphological abnormalities could be observed in schistosomes from SCID mice, by performing RNA-seq analysis. Of the 11,183 identified genes, 62 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) with 39 upregulated and 23 downregulated messenger RNAs (mRNAs) were found in male worms from SCID mice (S_M) vs. male worms from BALB/c mice (B_M), and 240 DEGs with 152 upregulated and 88 downregulated mRNAs were found in female worms from SCID mice (S_F) vs. female worms from BALB/c mice (B_F). We also tested nine DEGs with a relatively higher expression abundance in the gonads of the worms (ovary, vitellaria, or testis), suggesting their potential biological significance in the development and reproduction of the parasites. Gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis revealed that GO terms such as "microtubule-based process," "multicellular organismal development," and "Rho protein signal transduction" were significantly enriched in the DEGs in S_F vs. B_F, whereas GO terms such as "oxidation-reduction process," "response to stress," and "response to DNA damage stimulus" were significantly enriched in the DEGs in S_M vs. B_M. These results revealed that the differential expression of some important genes might contribute to the morphological abnormalities of worms in SCID mice. Furthermore, we selected one DEG, the mitochondrial prohibitin complex protein 1 (Phb1), to perform double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-mediated RNA interference (RNAi) in vivo targeting the worms in BALB/c mice, and we found that it was essential for the growth and reproductive development of both male and female S. japonicum worms. Taken together, these results provided a wealth of information on the differential gene expression profiles of schistosomes from SCID mice when compared with those from BALB/c mice, which were potentially involved in regulating the growth and development of schistosomes. These findings contributed to an understanding of parasite biology and provided a rich resource for the exploitation of antischistosomal intervention targets.

SUBMITTER: Liu R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7078119 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Comparative Transcriptome Analyses of <i>Schistosoma japonicum</i> Derived From SCID Mice and BALB/c Mice: Clues to the Abnormality in Parasite Growth and Development.

Liu Rong R Cheng Wen-Jun WJ Ye Feng F Zhang Yao-Dan YD Zhong Qin-Ping QP Dong Hui-Fen HF Tang Hong-Bin HB Jiang Hong H

Frontiers in microbiology 20200311

Schistosomiasis, caused by the parasitic flatworms called schistosomes, remains one of the most prevailing parasitic diseases in the world. The prodigious oviposition of female worms after maturity is the main driver of pathology due to infection, yet our understanding about the regulation of development and reproduction of schistosomes is limited. Here, we comparatively profiled the transcriptome of <i>Schistosoma japonicum</i> recovered from SCID and BALB/c mice, which were collected 35 days p ...[more]

PMID: 32218772

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Project description:The growth and development of schistosome has been affected in the immunodeficient hosts. But it remains unresolved about the molecular mechanisms involved in the development and reproduction regulation of schistosomes. This study tested and compared the metabolic profiles of the male and female Schistosoma japonicum worms collected from SCID mice and BALB/c mice at 5 weeks post infection using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) platform, in which the worms from SCID mice were the investigated organisms and the worms from BALB/c mice were used as the controls. There were 1015 ion features in ESI+ mode and 342 ion features in ESI- mode were identified after filtration by false discovery rate. Distinct metabolic profiles were found to clearly differentiate both male and female worms in SCID mice from those in BALB/c mice using multivariate modeling methods including the Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA), and Orthogonal Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (OPLS-DA). There were more differential metabolites in female worms than in male worms between SCID mice and BALB/c mice. And common and uniquely perturbed metabolites and pathways were identified among male and female worms from SCID mice when compared with BALB/c mice. The enriched metabolite sets of the differential metabolites in male worms between SCID mice and BALB/c mice included bile acid biosynthesis, taurine and hypotaurine metabolism, sphingolipid metabolism, retinol metabolism, purine metabolism, etc. And the enriched metabolite sets of differential metabolites in female worms included retinol metabolism, alpha linolenic acid and linoleic acid metabolism, purine metabolism, sphingolipid metabolism, glutamate metabolism, etc. Further detection and comparison in transcript abundance of genes of the perturbed retinol metabolism and its associated meiosis process in worms identified clues suggesting accumulated retinyl ester and perturbed meiotic process. These findings suggested an association between the schistosome with retarded growth and development in SCID mice and their perturbed metabolites and metabolic pathways, and provided a new insight into the growth and development regulation of S. japonicum worms from the metabolic level, which indicated great clues for discovery of drugs or vaccines against the parasites and disease with more researches.

Project description:Background: In immunodeficient mice, the growth and egg laying of schistosome were significantly retarded or inhibited, and their virulence on the host was also weakened. Some studies have suggested that host factors including endocrine and immune signals can modulate the parasite’s development and maturation. However, it is still not clear for the molecular mechanisms underlying the growth and maturation regulation of schistosome. Methodology/Principal results: We isolated the total RNAs of female and male schistosome from immunodeficient SCID mice and immunocompetent BALB/c mice (labeled as S_F, S_M, B_F and B_M) obtained at five weeks post infection with cercariae, and constructed cDNA libraries for RNA deep sequencing on an Illumina (Solexa) platform. In the results, the mRNAs were distinguished from long non-coding RNAs after blast to the reference Schistosoma japonicum genome, assemble and assessment of coding potential of the clean reads between S_F and B_F, and between S_M and B_M. The RNA-Seq yielded 90 to 142 million raw reads and 84 to 134 million clear reads per sample for the four schistosome samples. There are 56% to 65% of the clean reads mapped to the reference S. japonicum genome data. Given P-value <0.05, 298 differentially expressed genes (DEGs, mRNAs) for pairwise comparison of the above schistosome samples were identified. In detailed, 240 DEGs were identified in S_F vs B_F, of which 152 DEGs were up-regulated (147 DEGs were present in S_F worms but absent or undetected technically in B_F worms) and 88 were down-regulated (83 DEGs were present in B_F worms but absent or undetected technically in S_F worms). 62 DEGs were identified in S_M vs B_M, of which 39 were up-regulated (29 DEGs were present in S_M worms but absent or undetected technically in B_M worms) and 23 were down-regulated (22 DEGs were present in B_M worms but absent or undetected technically in S_M worms). Four differentially expressed mRNAs were shared among the two comparisons (present both in female and male worms), which were Sjp_0117620 (26S proteasome subunit P28-related), Sjp_0127870 (leucine zipper-EF-hand-containing transmembrane protein 1, mitochondrial precursor), Sjp_0130040 (putative dynein heavy chain) and Sjp_0094540 (hypothetical protein containing proteinase inhibitor I25, cystatin domain，SJCHGC07500 protein, partial). There were other 236 DEG specific in the comparison of S_F and B_F, and 58 DEG specific in the comparison of S_M and B_M. GO analysis was performed to summarize and explore the major GO categories of the DEGs which may be susceptible to host environments. The above DEGs of female comparison and male comparison were annotated with GO terms in three independent categories: biological processes (400 GO terms were hit for annotation of DEGs of female comparison and 287 GO terms were hit for annotation of DEGs of male comparison), molecular functions (231 GO terms were hit for annotation of DEGs of female comparison and 163 GO terms were hit for annotation of DEGs of male comparison), and cellular components (88 GO terms were hit for annotation of DEGs of female comparison and 75 GO terms were hit for annotation of DEGs of male comparison). The biological processes analysis revealed the predominant DEGs of female worms were involved in response to microtubule-based process, while predominant DEGs of male worms were involved in response to response to DNA damage stimulus, oxidation-reduction process and cellular response to stress. The molecular functions, some DEGs of female and male worms were annotated with calcium-dependent phospholipid binding activities in common. Notably, genes coding for microtubule associated complex, cytoskeletal part, cytoskeleton and microtubule cytoskeleton accounted for large portion of annotated DEGs of female worms in the cellular components analysis, while gene coding for nucleoplasmic THO complex of male worms were identified in the cellular components analysis. The KEGG pathway analysis showed many of the DEGs of female worms were involved in purine metabolism, RNA polymerase, fatty acid biosynthesis, fatty acid degradation and pyrimidine metabolism. Many of the DEGs of male worms were involved in oxidative phosphorylation, riboflavin metabolism and tyrosine metabolism. Conclusions/Significance: This study provides a comparative gene expression profiles of schistosomes derived from SCID mice and immunocompetent BALB/c mice. A number of genes potentially regulating the development of schistosomes were identified. These findings lay the foundation for schistosomiasis research in parasite-host interaction at the transcriptional level and provide a valuable resource for screening antischistosomal intervention targets or vaccine candidates.

Project description:BACKGROUND: More than 46 species of mammals can be naturally infected with Schistosoma japonicum in the mainland of China. Mice are permissive and may act as the definitive host of the life cycle. In contrast, rats are less susceptible to S. japonicum infection, and are considered to provide an unsuitable micro-environment for parasite growth and development. Since little is known of what effects this micro-environment has on the parasite itself, we have in the present study utilised a S. japonicum oligonucleotide microarray to compare the gene expression differences of 10-day-old schistosomula maintained in Wistar rats with those maintained in BALB/c mice. RESULTS: In total 3,468 schistosome genes were found to be differentially expressed, of which the majority (3,335) were down-regulated (? 2 fold) and 133 were up-regulated (? 2 fold) in schistosomula from Wistar rats compared with those from BALB/c mice. Gene ontology (GO) analysis revealed that of the differentially expressed genes with already established functions or close homology to well characterized genes in another organisms, many are related to important biological functions or molecular processes. Among the genes that were down-regulated in schistosomula from Wistar rats, some were associated with metabolism, signal transduction and development. Of these genes related to metabolic processes, areas including translation, protein and amino acid phosphorylation, proteolysis, oxidoreductase activities, catalytic activities and hydrolase activities, were represented. KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) pathway analysis of differential expressed genes indicated that of the 328 genes that had a specific KEGG pathway annotation, 324 were down-regulated and were mainly associated with metabolism, growth, redox pathway, oxidative phosphorylation, the cell cycle, ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis, protein export and the MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinases) signaling pathway. CONCLUSIONS: This work presents the first large scale gene expression study identifying the differences between schistosomula maintained in mice and those maintained in rats, and specifically highlights differential expression that may impact on the survival and development of the parasite within the definitive host. The research presented here provides valuable information for the better understanding of schistosome development and host-parasite interactions.

Project description:BackgroundSchistosoma japonicum is a pathogen of the phylum Platyhelminthes that causes zoonotic schistosomiasis in China and Southeast Asian countries where a lack of efficient measures has hampered disease control. The development of tools for diagnosis of acute and chronic infection and for novel antiparasite reagents relies on understanding the biological mechanisms that the parasite exploits.ResultsIn this study, the polyadenylated transcripts from the male and female S. japonicum were sequenced using a high-throughput RNA-seq technique. Bioinformatic and experimental analyses focused on post-transcriptional RNA processing, which revealed extensive alternative splicing events in the adult stage of the parasite. The numbers of protein-coding sequences identified in the transcriptomes of the female and male S. japonicum were 15,939 and 19,501 respectively, which is more than predicted from the annotated genome sequence. Further, we identified four types of post-transcriptional processing, or alternative splicing, in both female and male worms of S. japonicum: exon skipping, intron retention, and alternative donor and acceptor sites. Unlike mammalian organisms, in S. japonicum, the alternative donor and acceptor sites were more common than the other two types of post-transcriptional processing. In total, respectively 13,438 and 16,507 alternative splicing events were predicted in the transcriptomes of female and male S. japonicum.ConclusionsBy using RNA-seq technology, we obtained the global transcriptomes of male and female S. japonicum. These results further provide a comprehensive view of the global transcriptome of S. japonicum. The findings of a substantial level of alternative splicing events dynamically occurring in S. japonicum parasitization of mammalian hosts suggest complicated transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation mechanisms employed by the parasite. These data should not only significantly improve the re-annotation of the genome sequences but also should provide new information about the biology of the parasite.

Dataset Information

Comparative Transcriptome Analyses of Schistosoma japonicum Derived From SCID Mice and BALB/c Mice: Clues to the Abnormality in Parasite Growth and Development.

Publications

Comparative Transcriptome Analyses of <i>Schistosoma japonicum</i> Derived From SCID Mice and BALB/c Mice: Clues to the Abnormality in Parasite Growth and Development.

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