Generation and analysis of 113 adult stage Schistosoma japonicum (Chinese strain) expressed sequence tags / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To rapidly and economically obtain knowledge about adult stage Schistosoma japonicum (Chinese strain) expressed genes using expressed sequence tag (EST).</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A directional cDNA library constructed from Schistosoma japonicum (Chinese strain) adult stage RNA was used to generate expressed sequence tags (ESTs). These were compared against an EMBL-parasites database and GENBANK database by BLASTn and BLASTx.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>A total of 314 phage clones were randomly selected for generating expressed sequence tags (ESTs). From these clones, 132 EST-quality sequence were obtained. Among these EST-quality sequences, 113 ESTs were successfully submitted to the dbEST at GenBanK. A total of 7.6% of these EST-quality sequences were previously identified sequence of Schistosoma japonicum, while 4.5% were putatively identified sequences of Schistosoma japonicum. A total of 23.5% of these EST-quality sequences were putatively identified sequence of Schistosoma mansoni or other organisms. 57.6% had no matches in the database and were classified as unknown sequences. Most ESTs with the putative protein identified belonged to housekeeping proteins. Information about several interesting genes was found.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Partial cDNA sequencing to generate expressed sequence tags (ESTs) has the potential to rapidly and economically increase our knowledge about adult stage Schistosoma japonicum (Chinese strain) expressed genes.</p>