Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
Department of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
Sci Adv. 2019 Jul 24;5(7):eaaw6441. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aaw6441. eCollection 2019 Jul.
The rodent is the natural reservoir of several tick-borne infections, including Lyme disease. To expand the knowledge base for this key species in life cycles of several pathogens, we assembled and scaffolded the genome. The resulting assembly was 2.45 Gb in total length, with 24 chromosome-length scaffolds harboring 97% of predicted genes. RNA sequencing following infection of with , a Lyme disease agent, shows that, unlike blood, the skin is actively responding to the infection after several weeks. has a high level of segregating nucleotide variation, suggesting that natural resistance alleles to Crispr gene targeting constructs are likely segregating in wild populations. The reference genome will allow for experiments aimed at elucidating the mechanisms by which this widely distributed rodent serves as natural reservoir for several infectious diseases of public health importance, potentially enabling intervention strategies.
啮齿动物是几种蜱传感染的天然宿主，包括莱姆病。为了扩大这一关键物种在几种病原体生命周期中的知识库，我们组装并构建了 基因组。最终的组装总长度为 2.45Gb，24 个染色体长度的支架包含 97%的预测基因。用莱姆病病原体 感染 后进行 RNA 测序表明，与血液不同，皮肤在数周后会对感染做出积极反应。具有高水平的分离核苷酸变异，表明针对 Crispr 基因靶向构建体的天然抗性等位基因可能在野生种群中分离。参考基因组将允许进行旨在阐明这种广泛分布的啮齿动物如何作为几种具有公共卫生重要性的传染病的天然宿主的机制的实验，可能使干预策略成为可能。
