A transcriptomic analysis on gene expressions in the infective third and pathogenic fifth larval stages of Angiostrongylus cantonensis

• Published in: Parasitology international Vol. 63; no. 1; pp. 42 - 48
• Main Authors: Chang, Shih-Hsin, Tang, Petrus, Yen, Chuan-Min, Chow, Kai-Ping N., Wang, Lian-Chen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier Ireland Ltd 01.02.2014
• Subjects: Angiostrongylus cantonensis; Angiostrongylus cantonensis - genetics; Angiostrongylus cantonensis - metabolism; Animals; aspartic proteinases; cysteine; cysteine proteinases; Databases, Factual; etiological agents; Expressed sequence tags; Expressional level; Fifth-stage larvae; Gastroenterology and Hepatology; gene expression; Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental - physiology; gene ontology; humans; Infectious Disease; Larva - genetics; Larva - metabolism; larvae; meningoencephalitis; metabolism; metalloproteinases; Nematoda; parasites; Parastrongylus cantonensis; proteins; rats; reproduction; serine proteinases; sexual development; Third-stage larvae; Transcriptome; transcriptomics; Third-stage larvae; Fifth-stage larvae; Expressional level; Angiostrongylus cantonensis; Expressed sequence tags
• ISSN: 1383-5769; 1873-0329; 1873-0329
• DOI: 10.1016/j.parint.2013.08.012

Although Angiostrongylus cantonensis is a parasite of rats, it is an important etiologic agent of eosinophilic meningitis and eosinophilic meningoencephalitis in humans. This study was designed to compare the gene expression in the third- and fifth-stage (L3 and L5) by analysis of expressed sequence tags (ESTs). After removing low quality sequences, vector trimming, clustering and contig assembly, there remained 1437 clusters (285 contigs and 1152 singletons). Among these clusters, 779 (54.2%) showed significant similarity to the known proteins in the non-redundant protein database of GenBank (E-value<1×10−10) and species of the best hit sequences mainly belonged to nematodes. These clusters included 869 (60.5%) that were entirely comprised of ESTs from L3 (L3-biased clusters), 518 (36.0%) entirely from L5 (L5-biased clusters) and 50 (3.5%) from both stages (stage-shared clusters). Functional annotations by the Gene Ontology (GO) comparing with the eukaryotic clusters of orthologous groups of proteins (KOG) indicate that the L3-biased clusters significantly related to metabolism and the L5-biased clusters to growth, development, sexual differentiation and reproduction. Moreover, L3 were found to have expressions of metalloproteases, aspartic proteases, and cysteine proteases whereas expressions of cysteine, aspartic and serine proteases were revealed in L5. The results indicate that earlier developmental stages of nematodes may have a gene expression profile towards metabolism and later stages towards growth and development. [Display omitted] •54.2% of 1437 unigenes from A. cantonensis larvae matched known proteins.•L3 have expressions of metalloproteases, aspartic proteases, and cysteine proteases.•L5 have expressions of cysteine, aspartic and serine proteases.•L3-biased clusters are significantly related to metabolism.•L5-biased clusters are significantly related to growth and reproduction.