Schistosomes

Projects In Development

Single cell transcriptomics of schistosomes

We have two laboratory schistosome populations that show dramatic differences in the size of parasite sporocysts within snails and the numbers of cercariae larvae produced. This work will examine differences in size and expression of cell populations within these two parasite lines to better understand these transmission related differences.

Long read sequencing to maximize the utility of parasite genetic crosses

Schistosomes are riddled with transposable elements, and structural rearrangements that are difficult to resolve with short read sequence alone. We are using nanopore long read sequence to generate parent specific reference sequences for schistosome genetic crosses. We anticipate that this will improve our ability to align reads across the complete genome and to identify TE insertions and structural variants that may be driving QTLs.