Journal article

Genome and transcriptome of the porcine whipworm Trichuris suis

AR Jex, P Nejsum, EM Schwarz, L Hu, ND Young, RS Hall, PK Korhonen, S Liao, S Thamsborg, J Xia, P Xu, S Wang, JPY Scheerlinck, A Hofmann, PW Sternberg, J Wang, RB Gasser

Nature Genetics | Published : 2014

Abstract

Trichuris (whipworm) infects 1 billion people worldwide and causes a disease (trichuriasis) that results in major socioeconomic losses in both humans and pigs. Trichuriasis relates to an inflammation of the large intestine manifested in bloody diarrhea, and chronic disease can cause malnourishment and stunting in children. Paradoxically, Trichuris of pigs has shown substantial promise as a treatment for human autoimmune disorders, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and multiple sclerosis. Here we report whole-genome sequencing at ∼140-fold coverage of adult male and female T. suis and ∼80-Mb draft assemblies. We explore stage-, sex- and tissue-specific transcription of mRNAs and smal..

View full abstract

Grants

Awarded by National Institutes of Health


Funding Acknowledgements

We are indebted to the staff of the BGI-Shenzhen who assisted this study but whose names are not included in the authorship. We also acknowledge the continued contributions of staff at WormBase. This project was funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC), the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia and BGI-Shenzhen. This research was supported by a Victorian Life Sciences Computation Initiative (VLSCI) grant number VR0007 on its Peak Computing Facility at the University of Melbourne, an initiative of the Victorian Government (A.R.J. and R.B.G.). Other support to R.B.G. from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Australian Academy of Science, the Australian-American Fulbright Commission, Melbourne Water Corporation and the IBM Research Collaboratory for Life Sciences - Melbourne is gratefully acknowledged. RN. was supported by Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation. N.D.Y. holds an NHMRC Early Career Research Fellowship. E.M.S. was supported by startup funds from Cornell University. P.W.S. is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and acknowledges support from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).