Project description:The ‘Genetic Epidemiology of Asthma in Costa Rica’ is a family-based cross-sectional cohort ascertained between February 2001 and August 2008 on a Hispanic population isolate from the Central Valley of Costa Rica. The study recruited children between 6 to 14 years of age with moderate persistent asthma.
Project description:Data from multiple high throughput technologies such as RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) and protein mass spectrometry (MS/MS) are often used to assist in predicting eukaryote genome features such as genes, splice variants, and single nucleotide variants (SNVs). The genomes of parasitic nematodes causing neglected tropical diseases are often poorly annotated. Angiostrongylus costaricensis, a nematode that causes an intestinal inflammatory disease known as abdominal angiostrongyliasis (AA), is one example. Currently, no drugs or treatments are available for AA, a public health problem in Latin America, especially in Costa Rica and Brazil. The available genome of A. costaricensis, specific to the Costa Rica strain, is a draft version not supported by transcript- or protein-level evidence. This study used RNA-Seq and MS/MS data to perform an in-depth annotation of the A. costaricensis genome. Our prediction supplemented the reference annotation with a) novel coding and non-coding genes; b) pieces of evidence of alternative splicing generating new proteoforms; c) a list of SNVs specific to the Brazilian strain (Crissiumal). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that a multi-omics approach has been used to improve the genome annotation of a parasitic nematode. We hope this supplemented genome annotation can assist the future development of drugs to treat AA caused by either Brazil strain (Crissiumal) or Costa Rica strain.
Project description:Exploration and Characterization of the Antimalarial Activity of Cyclopropyl Carboxamides that Target the Mitochondrial Protein, Cytochrome b
Project description:Anastrepha ludens (Loew) is one of the most important pestiferous fruit fly species infesting citrus and mangoes from Texas to Costa Rica. Despite the latter, the mechanisms of odorant perception in this specie have been poorly studied. In most of the cases, the detection of semiochemicals in insects is carried out in the antenna, where volatile molecules penetrate sensillum pores and they are linked to soluble proteins to cross the lymph until reaching specific odor receptor triggering the signal transduction which can lead to a behavioral response. Scrutinizing the molecular foundation of odorant perception in A. ludens is of paramount importance to increase the efficiency of Integrated Management strategies against this pest. Therefore, we carried out a proteomic profiling of A. ludens’s antennas with three different maturity stages using comparative proteomic analysis with tandem mass tags (TMT) combined with synchronous precursor selection (SPS)-MS3 to gain insight into the proteome of the A. ludens antenna under CeraTrap exposure, a highly effective commercial attractant. Our study provides the first report where critical molecular players might form part of the odor perception mechanism in A. ludens.