CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Dyoctophyma renale, the giant kidney worm, is one of the largest parasitic nematodes of vertebrates described so far. It develops in, and completely destroys mammalian kidneys, and is thereby a debilitating and potentially lethal parasite of humans, domestic animals and endangered wildlife. They present an indirect life cycle with an annelid as an intermediate host. This is a seed project that is aimed to obtain the sequencing and analysis of the D. renale genome. Previously we characterized the soluble proteins of body wall, intestine, gonads and pseudocelomic fluid (PCF) of adult parasites. Two proteins, P17 (16,622 Da) and P44 (44,460 Da), dominate the PCF of both male and females. P17 accounts for the intense red colour of the adult parasites. It may function to carry or scavenge oxygen and be related to the ´nemoglobins´ found in other nematode clades. P44 was found to associate with fatty acids by thin layer chromatography. It may therefore have a role in distributing lipids within the parasites and, if also secreted, might influence local inflammatory and tissue responses. Now, we are obtaining the complete genome sequence of this helminth parasite to provided valuable information about the survival strategies of these organisms and predicting the biochemical and immunomodulatory functions of their proteins.