Schistosomiasis is endemic in many countries and territories of Asia, Africa, and South America. Hundreds of millions of people were at risk of schistosomiasis. However, to date, development of new schistosomiasis control strategies is highly exigent. Sequence-specific binding of duplex DNA by triplex-forming oligonucleotides (TFOs) provides a promising DNA site-specific tool which has been used to inhibit RNA transcription, to mediate genome modification, to direct site-specific cleavage of double helical DNA, and to block DNA replication. Therefore, triplex technology is a promising tool for anti-schistosomal drug designing and functional genomics analysis of schistosomes. To exploit this tool in schistoseme biology research and schistosomiasis control, the quantity and the location of TFO target sequences (TTSs) in schistosome genome must be known, and the potential of them as effective anti-gene targets should be analyzed.
In this research, we investigated TTS in Schistosoma japonicum genome. The final data set reveals that the upstream sequences possess higher concentration of TTS relative to transcribed gene region and overall genome, especially the long TTS. Besides, 98% genes which could identify both upstream sequences and transcribed gene regions on scaffold have at least one high-affinity TTS. More importantly, from these genes, we identified 5177 TTS that occur only in one gene and obtained 2878 genes have at least one such TTS. Among these genes, there are 25 chokepoint enzyme encoding genes and 231 non-functional annotation genes which have no homolog in the human host. They are potential drug targets. Moreover, 5689 TTSs that relative to human genome occur only in S. japonicum genome were also identified. Among them 1013 TTS occur in S. japonicum gene regions. These TTSs are good targets for gene targeting or drug designing. Therefore, our results reveal that there is abundant high-affinity and specific TTS existing in S. japonicum genome. Thus, propose that triplex technology could be applied to functional genomics analysis of schistosomes and development of new ways for schistosomiasis control.
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