Preliminary analysis of miRNA pathway in Schistosoma mansoni.

• Autor(a) principal: Gomes, Matheus de Souza
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Outros Autores: Cabral, Fernanda Janku, Passos, Liana Konovaloff Jannotti, Carvalho, Omar, Rodrigues, Vanderlei, Babá, Élio Hideo, Cota, Renata Guerra de Sá
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFOP
• Texto Completo: http://www.repositorio.ufop.br/handle/123456789/4552; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.parint.2008.10.002
• topic: Schistosoma mansoni; Gene expression; Post-transcriptional gene silencing

RNA silencing refers to a series of nuclear and cytoplasmatic processes involved in the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression or post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS), either by sequence-specific mRNA degradation or by translational arrest. The best characterized small RNAs are microRNAs (miRNAs), which predominantly perform gene silencing through post-transcriptional mechanisms. In this work we used bioinformatic approaches to identify the parasitic trematode Schistosoma mansoni sequences that are similar to enzymes involved in the post-transcriptional gene silencing mediated by miRNA pathway.We used amino acid sequences of well-known proteins involved in the miRNA pathway against S. mansoni genome and transcriptome databases identifying a total of 13 putative proteins in the parasite. In addition, the transcript levels of SmDicer1 and SmAgo2/3/4 were identified by qRT-PCR using cercariae, adult worms, eggs and in vitro cultivated schistosomula. Our results showed that the SmDicer1 and SmAgo2/3/4 are differentially expressed during schistosomula development, suggesting that the miRNA pathway is regulated at the transcript level and therefore may control gene expression during the life cycle of S. mansoni.