Genomics of Loa loa, a Wolbachia-free filarial parasite of humans

Congratulations to the Broad institute, as their Loa loa genome (shown on WormBase) has been successfully published in Nature Genetics.

Nat Genet. 2013 Mar 24. doi: 10.1038/ng.2585.

Genomics of Loa loa, a Wolbachia-free filarial parasite of humans.

Desjardins CA, Cerqueira GC, Goldberg JM, Hotopp JC, Haas BJ, Zucker J, Ribeiro JM, Saif S, Levin JZ, Fan L, Zeng Q,Russ C, Wortman JR, Fink DL, Birren BW, Nutman TB.
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

Abstract

Loa loa, the African eyeworm, is a major filarial pathogen of humans. Unlike most filariae, L. loa does not contain the obligate intracellular Wolbachia endosymbiont. We describe the 91.4-Mb genome of L. loa and that of the related filarial parasite Wuchereria bancrofti and predict 14,907 L. loa genes on the basis of microfilarial RNA sequencing. By comparing these genomes to that of another filarial parasite, Brugia malayi, and to those of several other nematodes, we demonstrate synteny among filariae but not with nonparasitic nematodes. The L. loa genome encodes many immunologically relevant genes, as well as protein kinases targeted by drugs currently approved for use in humans. Despite lacking Wolbachia, L. loa shows no new metabolic synthesis or transport capabilities compared to other filariae. These results suggest that the role of Wolbachia in filarial biology is more subtle than previously thought and reveal marked differences between parasitic and nonparasitic nematodes.