Project description:Toxocariasis is an important, neglected zoonosis caused mainly by Toxocara canis. Although our knowledge of helminth molecular biology is improving through completed draft genome projects, there is limited detailed information on the molecular biology of Toxocara species. Here, transcriptomic sequencing of male and female adult T. canis and comparative analyses were conducted. For each sex, two-thirds (66-67%) of quality-filtered reads mapped to the gene set of T. canis, and at least five reads mapped to each of 16,196 (87.1%) of all 18,596 genes, and 321 genes were specifically transcribed in female and 1467 in male T. canis. Genes differentially transcribed between the two sexes were identified, enriched biological processes and pathways linked to these genes established, and molecules associated with reproduction and development predicted. In addition, small RNA pathways involved in reproduction were characterized, but there was no evidence for piwi RNA pathways in adult T. canis. The results of this transcriptomic study should provide a useful basis to support investigations of the reproductive biology of T. canis and related nematodes.
Project description:Migration and persistence of Toxocara canis and T. cati larvae in brains of paratenic hosts, including humans, may induce the disease neurotoxocarosis (NT). Along with various clinical symptoms, neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders have been described as a consequence of the disease. As most knowledge on NT is derived from only a few published clinical cases, information regarding underlying pathomechanisms and host’s response to Toxocara remain scarce. Therefore, it was aimed to characterize the general pathogenesis as well as the respective host's reaction on the transcriptional level in brains of T. canis- and T. cati C57BL/6J mice as a model for paratenic hosts.
Project description:To encourage biological and biotechnological investigations on Toxocara canis, an important neglected tropical parasite, high-throughput sequencing was carried out to generate the sRNAs resource of adult Toxocara canis. In total, 11,632,676 and 10,723,433 sRNAs reads were yielded from male and female libraries, with similar proportion of small nucleolar RNA, micro RNA and small nuclear RNA. No PIWI-associated RNA was found in T. canis. 1,985 of male and 2,062 of female known miRNAs were respectively obtained, as well as 99 and 71 novel miRNAs in both genders. Comparative analysis was carried out on expression level which generated the lists of differential-expressed miRNAs, including 854 of male-specific expressed and 932 of female-specific expressed MiRNAs, and on sequence level which showed expression-sequence coordination. Based on Gene Ontology annotation and KEGG pathway analysis, the conservation and functional diversification of these differentially expressed miRNAs were investigated focusing on reproduction and larval development. 53 miRNA seed family, such as Tc-miR-1648/6090/7412/7931 and Tc-miR-698/1892/6795/6963/6980/7044/7078, were predicted to be involved in reproduction and development processes. Moreover, it was found that seed family with interspecies conservation, like ACCCGUA/ACCCUGU/CCCUGAG/GAAAGAC/GAGAUCA, have wide distribution in larvae, secretion and host serum, strongly suggesting the potential roles of these miRNAs in host and parasite interactions. This is the first exploration of sRNAs in T. canis, which would boost systematic biological investigations and encourage novel drugs vaccines and diagnostic tests.
Project description:<p>Toxocariasis, mainly caused by <em>Toxocara canis</em>, and to a lesser extent, <em>Toxocara cati</em>, is a neglected parasitic zoonosis. The mechanisms that underlie the changes in lipid metabolism of <em>T. canis</em> infection in Beagle dogs' lungs remain unclear. Lipidomics is a rapidly emerging approach that enables the global profiling of lipid composition by mass spectrometry. In this study, we performed a non-targeted lipidomic analysis of the lungs of Beagle dogs infected with the roundworm <em>T. canis</em> using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). A total of 1197 lipid species were identified, of which 63, 88 and 157 lipid species were significantly altered at 24 h post-infection (hpi), 96 hpi and 36 days post-infection (dpi), respectively. This global lipidomic profiling identified infection-specific lipid signatures for lung toxocariasis, and represented a comprehensive comparison between the lipid composition of dogs' lungs in the presence and absence of <em>T. canis</em> infection. The potential roles of the identified lipid species in the pathogenesis of <em>T. canis</em> are discussed, which has important implications for better understanding the interaction mechanism between <em>T. canis</em> and the host lung.</p>
Project description:Larvae of Toxocara canis and T. cati show affinities to different tissues within the paratenic host. T. canis preferably migrates to the CNS whereat T. cati prefers muscle tissue. As both species share many characteristics like antigen fractions, reasons for this behaviour as well as underlying pathomechanisms or host reactions towards the respective parasite are unknown. Therefore, it was aimed to characterize the general pathogenesis as well as the respective host's reaction on the transcriptional level to identify similarities and differences between T. canis- and T. cati-infected brains. Transcriptional changes in cerebra as well as cerebella of T. canis- and T. cati-infected C57Bl/6J mice were analysed 42 days post infection. In each infection group, 3 animals were included and 4 animals in the uninfected control.