An expressed sequence tag survey of gene expression in the pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis, an intermediate vector of Fasciola hepatica

Abstract

The pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis is an intermediate vector for the liver fluke Fasciola hepatica, a common parasite of ruminants and humans. Yet, despite being a disease of medical and economic importance, as well as a potentially useful comparative tool, the genetics of the relationship between Lymnaea and Fasciola has barely been investigated. As a complement to forthcoming F. hepatica expressed sequence tags (ESTs), we generated 1320 ESTs from L. stagnalis central nervous system (CNS) libraries. We estimate that these sequences derive from 771 different genes, of which 374 showed significant similarity to proteins in public databases, and 169 were similar to ESTs from the snail vector Biomphalaria glabrata. These L. stagnalis ESTs will provide insight into the function of the snail CNS, as well as the molecular components of behaviour and response to parasitism. In the future, the comparative analysis of Lymnaea/Fasciola with Biomphalaria/Schistosoma will help to understand both conserved and divergent aspects of the host-parasite relationship. The L. stagnalis ESTs will also assist gene prediction in the forthcoming B. glabrata genome sequence. The dataset is available for searching on the worldwide web at http://zeldia.cap.ed.ac.uk/mollusca.html.

Neuro-endocrine control of reproduction in hermaphroditic freshwater snails: mechanisms and evolution

“…Clearly, for the regulation of reproductive behaviors much of the knowledge is based on research performed with the simultaneously hermaphroditic freshwater snail L. stagnalis . Therefore, the initiatives to gather large-scale genomic and transcriptomic data for this species (Davison and Blaxter, 2005; Feng et al, 2009) are extremely valuable and are expected to further deepen our knowledge about the intricacies of regulatory processes in these animals. In addition to focusing on this model species, it would now be very informative to know to which extent the gathered knowledge about these neuro-endocrine processes can be extended to other basommatophoran (non-)model species.…”

“…Research into neurobiological and endocrine mechanisms of reproduction in animals has traditionally been used as a way to ultimately understand these processes in humans (e.g., Davison and Blaxter, 2005; Feng et al, 2009; Kemenes and Benjamin, 2009). As a result, in most model species the focus has been primarily on understanding male and female reproduction separately.…”

De Novo Sequencing and Transcriptome Analysis of the Central Nervous System of Mollusc Lymnaea stagnalis by Deep RNA Sequencing

“…Thus, for molecular biological investigations, researchers have made numerous efforts to identify new genes before studying their function [4]–[6]. Previously, two Lymnaea expression sequence tag (EST) databases were established by classical Sanger sequencing [7], [8]. Nevertheless, they are still insufficient to perform transcriptome analysis and improved transcriptome data is continuously needed.…”

Fine Mapping of the Pond Snail Left-Right Asymmetry (Chirality) Locus Using RAD-Seq and Fibre-FISH

“…However, there are few genomic resources currently available for use in this species [16], [17]. We have therefore utilised a new and transformative high-throughput DNA sequencing technology, Restriction-site-Associated DNA Sequencing (RAD-Seq) [18], [19], to find anonymous markers that flank the chirality locus in L. stagnalis directly.…”