MiRNA expression profile and target prediction in the zoonotic parasite Echinococcus multilocularis.

MACCHIAROLI, NATALIA; MATIAS PEREZ; CUCHER, MARCELA; KAMENETZKY, LAURA; BREHM, KLAUS; ROSENZVIT, MARA

Virtual Meeting

Congreso; First Latin American Congress of Women in Bioinformatics and Data Science; 2020

Women in Bioinformatics and Data Science

The neglected zoonotic disease alveolar echinococcosis (AE) is caused by the helminth parasite Echinococcus multilocularis. Current chemotherapeutical treatment requires prolonged drug therapy using benzimidazoles that are only parasitostatic. Thus, novel strategies for the treatment of AE are urgently needed. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-coding RNAs with a major role in regulation of gene expression in key biological processes. MiRNAs silence target mRNAs by binding to complementary sequences located in the 3′untranslated regions (3′UTRs). Here, we sequenced small cDNA libraries from different samples types of E. multilocularis. After miRNA identification, we analyzed their expression profile and performed a genome-wide prediction of miRNA targets. MiRNA expression analyses revealed that miR-71, miR-9, let-7, miR-10, miR-4989 and miR-1 were the most highly expressed miRNAs. The high expression of these miRNAs was conserved in other cestodes, suggesting essential roles in development, survival or host-parasite interaction. Three of them, miR-71, miR-4989 and let-7 were absent in the host or divergent from host orthologs, suggesting their potential use as therapeutic targets. We performed a miRNA target prediction and found relevant targets potentially involved in neural or muscle development, growth, lifespan regulation, transcription, signal transduction, amino acid metabolism and host-parasite interaction. These findings suggests essential roles for the most highly expressed miRNAs in E. multilocularis. In addition, we found that predicted functions for these miRNAs were conserved in model organisms, adding confidence to the predictions obtained. Highly expressed miRNAs involved in parasite essential functions, that are absent in the host or divergent from host orthologs might represent selective therapeutic targets for treatment and control of alveolar echinococcosis.