Project description:Chinese and Philippine strains of the blood fluke Schistosoma japonicum present clear and distinctive phenotypes in areas of fecundity, pathology, drug sensitivity and immunology. Despite these differences large scale sequencing efforts have focused solely on Chinese mainland strain of the parasite. We have undertaken a comparative genomic hybridisation (CGH) approach to highlight some of the structural differences in the genome of two of the major geographical isolates of S. japonicum. We identified seven distinct regions of the S. japonicum genome that present differential CGH between Chinese and Philippine strains of the blood fluke Schistosoma japonicum, representing either deletion or duplication regions in the Philippine strain. Within these regions, genes that may be related to phenotypical differences are identified and discussed.
