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. 2016 Apr;25(7):1465-77.
doi: 10.1111/mec.13574. Epub 2016 Mar 15.

Population genomics of the filarial nematode parasite Wuchereria bancrofti from mosquitoes

Affiliations

Population genomics of the filarial nematode parasite Wuchereria bancrofti from mosquitoes

Scott T Small et al. Mol Ecol. 2016 Apr.

Abstract

Wuchereria bancrofti is a parasitic nematode and the primary cause of lymphatic filariasis--a disease specific to humans. W. bancrofti currently infects over 90 million people throughout the tropics and has been acknowledged by the world health organization as a vulnerable parasite. Current research has focused primarily on the clinical manifestations of disease and little is known about the evolutionary history of W. bancrofti. To improve upon knowledge of the evolutionary history of W. bancrofti, we whole genome sequenced 13 W. bancrofti larvae. We circumvent many of the difficulties of multiple infections by sampling larvae directly from mosquitoes that were experimentally inoculated with infected blood. To begin, we used whole genome data to reconstruct the historical population size. Our results support a history of fluctuating population sizes that can be correlated with human migration and fluctuating mosquito abundances. Next, we reconstructed the putative pedigree of W. bancrofti worms within an infection using the kinship coefficient. We deduced that there are full-sib and half-sib relationships residing within the same larval cohort. Through combined analysis of the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes we concluded that this is likely a results of polyandrous mating, the first time reported for W. bancrofti. Lastly, we scanned the genomes for signatures of natural selection. Annotation of putative selected regions identified proteins that may have aided in a parasitic life style or may have evolved to protect against current drug treatments. We discuss our results in the greater context of understanding the biology of an animal with a unique life history and ecology.

Keywords: Wuchereria bancrofti; effective population size; inbreeding; lymphatic filariasis; mass drug administration; population genomics.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Phylogeny
Maximum Likelihood phylogeny with bootstrap support using all Wb L3 worms as well as sequences from Jakarta, Indonesia and Mali, Africa. The scale bar is in units of substitutions. Colored circles represent the infection where each worm originated: Patient 17 (green), Patient 48 (orange), Patient 74 (blue), Mali/Jakarta (red).
Figure 2
Figure 2. Kinship Analysis
Example pedigree for Wb L3 from within infection A) Patient 17 (pt17) and B) Patient 48 (pt48). The pedigree was constructed using the Kinship coefficients calculated in the program KING (Manichaikul et al. 2010). Shared maternal lineages were calculated using the mitochondrial genome phylogeny (Fig. S5, Supporting Information).
Figure 3
Figure 3. Reconstruction of Historical Demography
A) Pairwise sequential Markovian coalescent (PSMC) plots of individual Wb L3 worm genomes: L3-17E (green/solid), L3-4873 (orange/dotted), L3-74E (blue/dash). The horizontal axis represents time in Log10 generations, while the vertical axis represents the Log10 of Ne (effective population size). Clusters of like-colored lines indicate bootstrapping support for each trajectory, while heavy colored lines indicate mean values. The shaded region (red box) corresponds to the peak effective population size of Anopheles farauti no 4. from Logue et al. (2015). B) Multiple sequential Markovian coalescent (MSMC) of 6 haplotypes from three unrelated Wb L3 worms: L3-17E, L3-4873, and L3-4853. The horizontal axis represents time in generations, while the vertical axis represents Ne, the effective population size.

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