Tissue-specific transcriptomics and proteomics of a filarial nematode and its Wolbachia endosymbiont

• DOI: 10.1186/s12864-015-2083-2
• Publication Date: 2015-11-11T11:59:24Z
• Authors: Ashley N. Luck; Kathryn G. Anderson; Colleen M. McClung; Nathan C. VerBerk...; Jeremy M. Foster; Michelle L. Micha...; Barton E. Slatko
• Keywords: Obligate; Filarioidea; Obligate parasite

Filarial nematodes cause debilitating human diseases. While treatable, recent evidence suggests drug resistance is developing, necessitating the development of novel targets and new treatment options. Although transcriptomic proteomic studies around nematode life cycle have greatly enhanced our knowledge, whole organism approaches not provided spatial resolution gene expression, which can be gained by examining individual tissues. Generally, due to their small size, tissue dissection human-infecting filarial remains extremely challenging. However, canine heartworm disease caused a closely related much larger nematode, Dirofilaria immitis. As with many other nematodes, D. immitis contains Wolbachia, an obligate bacterial endosymbiont present in hypodermis developing oocytes within uterus. Here, we describe first concurrent tissue-specific profiling (D. immitis) its Wolbachia (wDi) order better understand functions identify antigens that may used for diagnostic therapeutic tools. Adult worms were dissected into female body wall (FBW), uterus (FU), intestine (FI), head (FH), male (MBW), testis (MT), (MI), (MH) 10.1186/s12864-015-2083-2 spicule (MS) prepare libraries. Transcriptomic analysis several tissues identified biological enriched certain Hierarchical clustering transcriptomes, along recently published whole-worm adult revealed transcriptome typically dominated transcripts originating from reproductive tissue. The appeared most variable transcriptome, possibly age. are shared between tissues, significant differences expression observed testis. Interestingly, wDi fairly similar, yet slightly different Proteomic methods verified 32 % predicted proteome, including over 700 hypothetical proteins Of note, among some abundant identified, fulfill important still uncharacterized function. this parallel adds understanding biology serves as resource develop future strategies against endosymbionts.