Objective:
To identify the possible virulence factors (VFs) of P. proliferus
Methods:
By Illumina HiSeq 4000 RNA-Seq platform, transcriptomes of adult P. proliferus worms were sequenced to
predict VFs via screening the homologues of traditional VFs of parasites based on the annotations in the functional
databases. Homology analysis was also performed to screen homologous genes between P. proliferus and other four
Paragonimus species (i.e., P. kellicotti, P. skrjabini, P. miyazakii and P. westermani) whose transcriptomes were
downloaded from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database, and then the differential-expressed
homologous genes (DEHGs) were screened via comparisons of P. proliferus and P. kellicotti, P. skrjabini, P. miyazakii and
P. westermani, respectively. Finally, an overlap of the predicted VFs and DEHGs were performed to identify possible key
VFs those do not only belong to the predicted VFs but also DEHGs
Results:
A total of 1,509 genes of P. proliferus homologous to traditional VFs, including surface antigens (SAGs), secreted
proteins (SPs), ATP-Binding Cassette (ABC) Transporters, actin-related proteins (ARPs), aminopeptidases (APases),
glycoproteins (GPs), cysteine proteases (CPs), and heat shock proteins (HSPs), were identified. Meanwhile, homology
analysis identified 6279 DEHGs among the five species, of which there were 48 DEHGs being mutually differentialexpressed
among the four pairs of comparisons, such as MRP, Tuba 3, PI3K, WASF2, ADK, Nop56, DNAH1, PFK-
2/FBPase2, Ppp1r7, SSP7. Furthermore, the overlap between the predicted VFs and DEHGs shew 97 genes of the predicted
VFs simultaneously belonged to DEHGs. Strikingly, of these 97 genes, only 26, including Chymotrypsin, Leucine APases,
Cathepsin L, HSP 70, and so on, were higher expressed in P. proliferus while all the remaining were lower expressed than
in the four other species
Conclusions:
This work provides a fundamental context for further studies of the pathogenicity of P. proliferus. Most of
the predicted VFs which simultaneously belonged to DEHGs were lower expressed in P. proliferus