Single-cell RNA-seq in the parasite Schistosoma mansoni

Date

Nov 27, 2015

Time

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Speaker

Hayley Bennett

Affiliation

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Parasite Genomics, Cambridge, UK

Language

en

Main Topic

Biologie

Other Topics

Biologie

Host

Mihail Sarov

Description

The Schistosoma mansoni genome assembly and annotation provide a high quality community resource for molecular biology. However, data on the role of organism-specific genes, predicted signalling pathways and the contextual function of many genes within the whole organisim are currently sparse. Single-cell resolution sequencing provides opportunities to define cellular subtypes and investigate co-expression of genes in this important parasite. Using staining and image analysis I estimate there to be around a thousand non-dividing cells in the larval schistosomula stage. After in vitro transformation and culture, I have optimised a dissassociation protocol to obtain a cell suspension from this stage of the parasite and use flow cytometry to capture individual cells. Using the Smart-seq2 protocol and Illumina paired-end sequencing I report the first transcriptomic profiles for individual cells. The protocol will be used in ongoing experiments to generate more single-cell data for analysis.

Last modified: Nov 28, 2015, 8:40:23 AM