Loa loa (Eye worm, Cameroon SouthWest Province isolate) Assembly and Gene Annotation

NOTE: The genome sequence and annotation represented here correspond with the original publication of the genome (Desjardins et al, 2013). For the latest L. loa data, including alternative genome assemblies, please visit WormBase ParaSite.

About Loa loa

Loa loa, the African eye worm, is a parasitic nematode and the causative agent of subcutaneous filariasis in human. Unlike B.malayi it does not contain obligate Wolbachia endosymbionts. Its life cycle contains an insect stage in a Chrysops host where it develops into an infectious larvae stage. Its geographic distribution is mainly Africa and India.

• L. loa data at WormBase ParaSite
• Broad Institute filariasis genomes

Picture credit: Dr Graham Beards Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons (Image source)

Assembly

This version of the Loa loa genome was sequenced by the Broad Institute. The sequenced strain is a single isolate of a patient from South West Province, Cameroon. The version in Ensembl Metazoa is the third published assembly of a 454 whole genome shotgun sequencing at 20x coverage.

Annotation

The gene set was predicted by Broad using a combination of various gene finders and RNA-seq data.

References

1. Genomics of Loa loa, a Wolbachia-free filarial parasite of humans.
   Desjardins CA, Cerqueira GC, Goldberg JM, Dunning Hotopp JC, Haas BJ, Zucker J, Ribeiro JM, Saif S, Levin JZ, Fan L et al. 2013. Nature Genetics. 45:495-500.

Picture credit: Microfilaria of L. loa in a thin blood smear, stained with Giemsa (CDC)

Other data

Various protein and cDNA sequences have been aligned to the L. loa genome and can be viewed on the genome browser:

• Complete protein sets from human (UniProtKB), D. melanogaster (FlyBase), S. cerevisae (SGD), and selected other nematodes (WormBase)
• All other reviewed protein sequences from UniProtKB
• ESTs and mRNAs from other nematodes in WormBase

Links

• L. loa data at WormBase ParaSite
• Broad Institute filariasis genomes

More information

General information about this species can be found in Wikipedia.