Transcriptional profiling of Bulinus globosus provides insights into immune gene families in snails supporting the transmission of urogenital schistosomiasis.
Dev Comp Immunol
; 154: 105150, 2024 May.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38367887
ABSTRACT
Schistosomiasis, urogenital and intestinal, afflicts 251 million people worldwide with approximately two-thirds of the patients suffering from the urogenital form of the disease. Freshwater snails of the genus Bulinus (Gastropoda Planorbidae) serve as obligate intermediate hosts for Schistosoma haematobium, the etiologic agent of human urogenital schistosomiasis. These snails also act as vectors for the transmission of schistosomiasis in livestock and wildlife. Despite their crucial role in human and veterinary medicine, our basic understanding at the molecular level of the entire Bulinus genus, which comprises 37 recognized species, is very limited. In this study, we employed Illumina-based RNA sequencing (RNAseq) to profile the genome-wide transcriptome of Bulinus globosus, one of the most important intermediate hosts for S. haematobium in Africa. A total of 179,221 transcripts (N50 = 1,235) were assembled and the benchmarking universal single-copy orthologs (BUSCO) was estimated to be 97.7%. The analysis revealed a substantial number of transcripts encoding evolutionarily conserved immune-related proteins, particularly C-type lectin (CLECT) domain-containing proteins (n = 316), Toll/Interleukin 1-receptor (TIR)-containing proteins (n = 75), and fibrinogen related domain-containing molecules (FReD) (n = 165). Notably, none of the FReDs are fibrinogen-related proteins (FREPs) (immunoglobulin superfamily (IgSF) + fibrinogen (FBG)). This RNAseq-based transcriptional profile provides new insights into immune capabilities of Bulinus snails, helps provide a framework to explain the complex patterns of compatibility between snails and schistosomes, and improves our overall understanding of comparative immunology.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Esquistossomose Urinária
/
Bulinus
Limite:
Animals
/
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Dev Comp Immunol
Ano de publicação:
2024
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Estados Unidos