| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥900,000)
Fiscal Year 2013: ¥1,170,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥270,000)
Fiscal Year 2012: ¥2,730,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥630,000)
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| Research Abstract |
Parasitic animals live longer as compared with related free-living species. In order to elucidate molecular basis for the longevity, we constructed a high-quality draft genome of an intestinal nematode, Strongyloides venezuelensis, to approach this issue with bioinformatics. Statistics of our draft genome were as follows; total size 55.5 Mb, longest scaffold 15Mb, N50 scaffold length 2Mb, with 18,048 predicted coding genes.
One of the genes which exist only in parasitic nematodes but not in free-living nematodes was that for ferrochelatase, which catalyzes the final step of hem-biosynthesis. We confirmed that this gene of S. venezuelensis was perfectly functional, though all nematodes including animal parasitic nematodes do not synthesize hem by themselves. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that animal parasitic nematodes acquired this gene from bacteria through horizontal gene transfer. The physiological role could be to detoxify hem, which is highly toxic to cells.
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