Gene discovery project supported by Welcome Trust

Title:

Biomphalaria glabrata: gene discovery, expression profiling and interval mapping
to elucidate mechanisms of resistance to Schistosoma mansoni.

Investigators
Cathy S. Jones (principal; c.s.jones@abdn.ac.uk),
Anne Lockyer* (post-doc;  a.lockyer@nhm.ac.uk),
David Rollinson* (dr@nhm.ac.uk),
Les R. Noble (nhi673@abdn.ac.uk)
Department of Zoology, University of Aberdeen, Tillydrone Avenue, Aberdeen, AB24 2TZ, Scotland,
*Wolfson Wellcome Biomedical Laboratories, Department of Zoology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD UK

Project Description
The primary interest is elucidating those genes involved in the mechanism of schistosome resistance in the molluscan intermediate host Biomphalaria glabrata. Thus this proposal aims to identify and map genes/ESTs involved in snail-schistosome interactions, with special emphasis on those conferring resistance in B. glabrata. There will be three interconnecting strands to the work:
  1. Initiate gene discovery in B. glabrata by expressed sequence tagging (ESTs), using ORESTES (ORF ESTs) from various snail tissues. ESTs will be tested for expression during parasite challenges of resistant and susceptible snail strains (see 2).
  2. Identify those transcripts from (1) and from subtractive cDNA libraries involved in the defence reaction of B. glabrata to S. mansoni by employing cDNA microarrays.
  3. Identify the resistance gene(s)/areas of the B. glabrata genome involved in defence reactions, by interval mapping random markers and transcripts identified as differentially expressed by microarrays.
- 3 year project funded by the Wellcome Trust, - start date January 2003
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