Schistosome transcriptome: insights and perspectives for functional genomics

Progress on schistosome research has, until recently, suffered from limited genomic information. This situation changed dramatically in October 2003 with the simultaneous publication of the Schistosoma mansoni and Schistosome japonicum, transcriptomes. A total of 450 00 expressed-sequence tags was obtained for S. japonicum, derived from adult worms and eggs. For S. mansoni, a total of similar to125 000 ESTs was analyzed, derived from six different life cycle stages, and estimated to represent 92% of the complement of >14 000 genes. The wealth of information generated is essential for annotation of the now-sequenced S. mansoni genome. It has permitted a list of potential drug targets and vaccine candidates to be drawn up, and has set in train proteomic and functional genomic projects to exploit the data, and ultimately lead to improved control strategies.