Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Nat Genet. 2013 May;45(5):495-500. doi: 10.1038/ng.2585. Epub 2013 Mar 24.
Loa loa, the African eyeworm, is a major filarial pathogen of humans. Unlike most filariae, L. loa does not contain the obligate intracellular Wolbachia endosymbiont. We describe the 91.4-Mb genome of L. loa and that of the related filarial parasite Wuchereria bancrofti and predict 14,907 L. loa genes on the basis of microfilarial RNA sequencing. By comparing these genomes to that of another filarial parasite, Brugia malayi, and to those of several other nematodes, we demonstrate synteny among filariae but not with nonparasitic nematodes. The L. loa genome encodes many immunologically relevant genes, as well as protein kinases targeted by drugs currently approved for use in humans. Despite lacking Wolbachia, L. loa shows no new metabolic synthesis or transport capabilities compared to other filariae. These results suggest that the role of Wolbachia in filarial biology is more subtle than previously thought and reveal marked differences between parasitic and nonparasitic nematodes.
罗阿罗阿，即非洲眼虫，是一种主要的人类丝虫病原体。与大多数丝虫不同，Loa loa 不包含必需的细胞内共生菌沃尔巴克氏体。我们描述了罗阿罗阿的 91.4Mb 基因组以及相关的丝虫寄生虫班氏吴策线虫的基因组，并基于微丝蚴 RNA 测序预测了 14907 个罗阿罗阿基因。通过将这些基因组与另一种丝虫寄生虫布鲁氏线虫以及其他几种线虫的基因组进行比较，我们证明了丝虫之间存在基因同线性，但与非寄生线虫没有同线性。Loa loa 基因组编码了许多免疫相关基因，以及目前批准用于人类的药物靶向的蛋白激酶。尽管缺乏沃尔巴克氏体，但与其他丝虫相比，Loa loa 并没有表现出新的代谢合成或运输能力。这些结果表明，沃尔巴克氏体在丝虫生物学中的作用比之前认为的更为微妙，并揭示了寄生和非寄生线虫之间的显著差异。
