Abstract
BackgroundThe life cycle of Taenia solium is characterized by different stages of development, requiring various kinds of hosts that can appropriately harbor the eggs (proglottids), the oncospheres, the larvae and the adults. Similar to other metazoan pathogens, T. solium undergoes transcriptional and developmental regulation via epigenetics during its complex lifecycle and host interactions.ResultIn the present study, we integrated whole-genome bisulfite sequencing and RNA-seq technologies to characterize the genome-wide DNA methylation and its effect on transcription of Cysticercus cellulosae of T. solium. We confirm that the T. solium genome in the cysticercus stage is epigenetically modified by DNA methylation in a pattern similar to that of other invertebrate genomes, i.e., sparsely or moderately methylated. We also observed an enrichment of non-CpG methylation in defined genetic elements of the T. solium genome. Furthermore, an integrative analysis of both the transcriptome and the DNA methylome indicated a strong correlation between these two datasets, suggesting that gene expression might be tightly regulated by DNA methylation. Importantly, our data suggested that DNA methylation might play an important role in repressing key parasitism-related genes, including genes encoding excretion-secretion proteins, thereby raising the possibility of targeting DNA methylation processes as a useful strategy in therapeutics of cysticercosis.
Highlights
Cysticercus cellulosae, the larval stage of T. solium, resides in the central nervous system, skeletal muscle, and other organs of both pigs and humans [1, 2], resulting in the high prevalence of cysticercosis worldwide
Two genes (Scaffold00200.gene8095 and LongOrf.asmbl_16366) were identified that are homologous to DNMT3B and DNA methyltransferase 2 (DNMT2), respectively, with high sequence similarity (e-value < 1e-10)
A high level of divergence between T. solium and other species was observed for DNMT1 homologs (Table S2), which was in agreement with previous studies
Summary
Cysticercus cellulosae, the larval stage of T. solium, resides in the central nervous system, skeletal muscle, and other organs of both pigs and humans [1, 2], resulting in the high prevalence of cysticercosis worldwide. Health Organization, serious human disease burden [3, 4] and annual economic losses in livestock are caused by infection with this pork tapeworm. To better control this disease, the mechanisms of transcriptional and developmental regulation during its complex lifecycle and host interactions should be better understood. DNA methylation, i.e., 5-methylcytosine (m5C) is an important epigenetic mechanism that is present in the genomes of Trichinella spiralis [5] and Platyhelminthes (Schistosoma mansoni [6]) parasitic nematodes. DNA methylation plays an important role in parasitism. Similar to other metazoan pathogens, T. solium undergoes transcriptional and developmental regulation via epigenetics during its complex lifecycle and host interactions
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