Noreikiene, Kristina and Ozerov, Mikhail and Ahmad, Freed and Koiv, Toomas and Kahar, Siim and Gross, Riho and Sepp, Margot and Pellizzone, Antonia and Vesterinen, Eero and Kisand, Veljo and Vasemägi, Anti
(2020).
Humic-acid-driven escape from eye parasites revealed by RNA-seq and target-specific metabarcoding.
Parasites and Vectors. 13
, 433
[Research article]
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Abstract
Background: Next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies are extensively used to dissect the molecular mechanisms of host-parasite interactions in human pathogens. However, ecological studies have yet to fully exploit the power of NGS as a rich source for formulating and testing new hypotheses.Methods: We studied Eurasian perch (Perca fluviatilis) and its eye parasite (Trematoda, Diplostomidae) communities in 14 lakes that differed in humic content in order to explore host-parasite-environment interactions. We hypothesised that high humic content along with low pH would decrease the abundance of the intermediate hosts (gastropods), thus limiting the occurrence of diplostomid parasites in humic lakes. This hypothesis was initially invoked by whole eye RNA-seq data analysis and subsequently tested using PCR-based detection and a novel targeted metabarcoding approach.Results: Whole eye transcriptome results revealed overexpression of immune-related genes and the presence of eye parasite sequences in RNA-seq data obtained from perch living in clear-water lakes. Both PCR-based and targeted-metabarcoding approach showed that perch from humic lakes were completely free from diplostomid parasites, while the prevalence of eye flukes in clear-water lakes that contain low amounts of humic substances was close to 100%, with the majority of NGS reads assigned toTylodelphys clavata.Conclusions: High intraspecific diversity ofT. clavataindicates that massively parallel sequencing of naturally pooled samples represents an efficient and powerful strategy for shedding light on cryptic diversity of eye parasites. Our results demonstrate that perch populations in clear-water lakes experience contrasting eye parasite pressure compared to those from humic lakes, which is reflected by prevalent differences in the expression of immune-related genes in the eye. This study highlights the utility of NGS to discover novel host-parasite-environment interactions and provide unprecedented power to characterize the molecular diversity of cryptic parasites.
Authors/Creators: | Noreikiene, Kristina and Ozerov, Mikhail and Ahmad, Freed and Koiv, Toomas and Kahar, Siim and Gross, Riho and Sepp, Margot and Pellizzone, Antonia and Vesterinen, Eero and Kisand, Veljo and Vasemägi, Anti | ||||||
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Title: | Humic-acid-driven escape from eye parasites revealed by RNA-seq and target-specific metabarcoding | ||||||
Series Name/Journal: | Parasites and Vectors | ||||||
Year of publishing : | 2020 | ||||||
Volume: | 13 | ||||||
Article number: | 433 | ||||||
Number of Pages: | 11 | ||||||
ISSN: | 1756-3305 | ||||||
Language: | English | ||||||
Publication Type: | Research article | ||||||
Article category: | Scientific peer reviewed | ||||||
Version: | Published version | ||||||
Copyright: | Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 | ||||||
Full Text Status: | Public | ||||||
Subjects: | (A) Swedish standard research categories 2011 > 4 Agricultural Sciences > 401 Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries > Fish and Aquacultural Science (A) Swedish standard research categories 2011 > 1 Natural sciences > 106 Biological Sciences (Medical to be 3 and Agricultural to be 4) > Ecology | ||||||
Keywords: | Diplostomidae, Host-parasite interaction, Humic substances, Metabarcoding, Perca fluviatilis, RNA-seq | ||||||
URN:NBN: | urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-p-107880 | ||||||
Permanent URL: | http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-p-107880 | ||||||
Additional ID: |
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ID Code: | 17604 | ||||||
Faculty: | NJ - Fakulteten för naturresurser och jordbruksvetenskap | ||||||
Department: | (NL, NJ) > Department of Aquatic Resources (NL, NJ) > Dept. of Ecology (S) > Dept. of Ecology | ||||||
Deposited By: | SLUpub Connector | ||||||
Deposited On: | 25 Sep 2020 15:15 | ||||||
Metadata Last Modified: | 15 Jan 2021 19:44 |
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