College of Animal Science and Technology, Inner Mongolia University for Nationalities, Tongliao, 028000, Inner Mongolia, China.
Shenzhen E-GENE Technology Co., LTD, B3301, Life Science Park, Shenzhen City Construction Investment Development Creative Factory, Julongshan A Road, Pingshan District, Shenzhen, 518083, China.
Hereditas. 2021 Aug 12;158(1):28. doi: 10.1186/s41065-021-00195-9.
The life cycle of Taenia solium is characterized by different stages of development, requiring various kinds of hosts that can appropriately harbor the eggs (proglottids), the oncospheres, the larvae and the adults. Similar to other metazoan pathogens, T. solium undergoes transcriptional and developmental regulation via epigenetics during its complex lifecycle and host interactions.
In the present study, we integrated whole-genome bisulfite sequencing and RNA-seq technologies to characterize the genome-wide DNA methylation and its effect on transcription of Cysticercus cellulosae of T. solium. We confirm that the T. solium genome in the cysticercus stage is epigenetically modified by DNA methylation in a pattern similar to that of other invertebrate genomes, i.e., sparsely or moderately methylated. We also observed an enrichment of non-CpG methylation in defined genetic elements of the T. solium genome. Furthermore, an integrative analysis of both the transcriptome and the DNA methylome indicated a strong correlation between these two datasets, suggesting that gene expression might be tightly regulated by DNA methylation. Importantly, our data suggested that DNA methylation might play an important role in repressing key parasitism-related genes, including genes encoding excretion-secretion proteins, thereby raising the possibility of targeting DNA methylation processes as a useful strategy in therapeutics of cysticercosis.
猪带绦虫的生命周期具有不同的发育阶段，需要各种宿主来适当容纳虫卵（节片）、原头蚴、幼虫和成虫。与其他后生动物病原体类似，猪带绦虫在其复杂的生命周期和宿主相互作用过程中通过表观遗传学进行转录和发育调控。
本研究整合了全基因组亚硫酸氢盐测序和 RNA-seq 技术，以描述猪带绦虫囊尾蚴的全基因组 DNA 甲基化及其对转录的影响。我们证实，猪带绦虫囊尾蚴阶段的基因组通过 DNA 甲基化进行表观遗传修饰，其模式类似于其他无脊椎动物基因组，即稀疏或中度甲基化。我们还观察到在猪带绦虫基因组的特定遗传元件中非 CpG 甲基化的富集。此外，对转录组和 DNA 甲基组的综合分析表明，这两个数据集之间存在很强的相关性，这表明基因表达可能受到 DNA 甲基化的紧密调控。重要的是，我们的数据表明，DNA 甲基化可能在抑制关键寄生相关基因方面发挥重要作用，包括编码排泄-分泌蛋白的基因，从而为将 DNA 甲基化过程作为囊尾蚴病治疗的一种有用策略提供了可能性。
