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Long non-coding RNAs are markers of Schistosoma mansoni single-cell populations

ABSTRACT: Schistosoma mansoni is a flatworm that causes schistosomiasis, a neglected tropical disease that affects over 200 million people worldwide. New therapeutic targets are needed with only one drug available for treatment and no vaccine. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are transcripts longer than 200 nucleotides with low or no protein-coding potential. In other organisms, they have been shown as involved with reproduction, stem cell maintenance and drug resistance, and they tend to exhibit tissue-specific expression patterns. S. mansoni expresses thousands of lncRNA genes; however, the cell type expression patterns of lncRNAs in the parasite remain uncharacterized. Here, we have re-analyzed public single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) data obtained from adult S. mansoni to identify the lncRNAs signature of adult schistosome cell types. A total of 8023 lncRNAs (79% of all lncRNAs) was detected. Analyses of the lncRNAs expression profiles in the cells using statistically stringent criteria were performed to identify 74 lncRNA gene markers of cell clusters. Male gamete and tegument lineage clusters contained most of the cluster-specific lncRNA markers. We also identified lncRNA markers of specific neural clusters. Whole-mount in situ hybridization (WISH) and double fluorescence in situ hybridization were used to validate the cluster-specific expression of 13 out of 16 lncRNA gene markers (81%) in the male and female adult parasite tissues; for one of these 16 gene loci, probes for two different lncRNA isoforms were used, which showed differential isoforms usage in testis and ovary. An atlas of the expression profiles across the cell clusters of all lncRNAs detected in our analysis is available as a public website resource. The results presented here give strong support to a tissue-specific expression and to a regulated expression program of lncRNAs in S. mansoni. This will be the basis for further exploration of lncRNA genes as potential therapeutic targets.

ORGANISM(S): Schistosoma mansoni

PROVIDER: GSE207933 | GEO | 2022/10/01

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:The human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum has a complex and multi-stage life cycle that requires extensive immune escape, invasion of human liver and blood cells, and transmission through the female Anopholes mosquito. To date, the regulatory elements orchestrating these critical parasite processes remain largely unknown. However, there is mounting evidence across a broad range of species that intergenic long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) and antisense RNA can regulate chromatin state and gene expression. To pursue such functional roles for lncRNAs in P. falciparum, we performed deep, strand-specific RNA sequencing of fifteen non-polyA-selected blood stage samples, and assembled and characterized the properties of 660 intergenic lncRNAs, 474 antisense RNAs, and 1381 circular RNAs (circRNAs). We further validated the non-canonical splice junctions of seven P. falciparum circRNAs, an emerging class of non-coding RNA with regulatory potential and unexplored functional significance in P. falciparum. Our comprehensive analysis of P. falciparum lncRNAs indicates a functional role for these transcripts; P. falciparum intergenic lncRNAs and antisense RNAs are developmentally regulated in a similar periodic fashion to annotated transcripts, and sense-antisense pair expression is significantly anti-correlated. Notable outliers include intergenic lncRNAs that strongly peak in expression during parasite invasion, such as the telomere-associated lncRNA-TARE family, antisense transcripts that drop in expression during parasite invasion, and a highly correlated, multi-exonic, antisense counterpart to P. falciparum Gametocyte Developmental Protein 1 (PfGDV1). Taken together, our results present over two thousand P. falciparum intergenic lncRNA, antisense, and circRNA candidates and highlight promising P. falciparum lncRNAs for future investigation. We harvested fifteen blood stage samples from two biological replicate time-courses. The first time-course comprised of eleven samples that finely map temporal changes during P. falciparum blood stage development. We harvested samples over 56 hours, at roughly 4-hour time intervals, from a tightly synchronized P. falciparum 3D7 parasite population. As the asexual blood stage is an approximately 48-hour cycle, this time-course allowed us to profile gene expression during RBC rupture and parasite invasion. The second time-course comprised of four samples harvested in synchronous P. falciparum 3D7 parasites approximately four hours before and after the ring to trophozoite and trophozoite to schizont morphological stage transitions, which occur during the blood stage at 24 hours post invasion (hpi) and 36 hpi, respectively.

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Long non-coding RNAs are markers of Schistosoma mansoni single-cell populations

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