Revisiting Schistosoma mansoni Micro-Exon Gene (MEG) Protein Family: A Tour into Conserved Motifs and Annotation

Genome sequencing of the human parasite Schistosoma mansoni revealed an interesting gene superfamily, called micro-exon gene (meg), that encodes secreted MEG proteins. The genes are composed of short exons (3–81 base pairs) regularly interspersed with long introns (up to 5 kbp). This article recollects 35 S. mansoni specific meg genes that are distributed over 7 autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes and that code for at least 87 verified MEG proteins. We used various bioinformatics tools to produce an optimal alignment and propose a phylogenetic analysis. This work highlighted intriguing conserved patterns/motifs in the sequences of the highly variable MEG proteins. Based on the analyses, we were able to classify the verified MEG proteins into two subfamilies and to hypothesize their duplication and colonization of all the chromosomes. Together with motif identification, we also proposed to revisit MEGs’ common names and annotation in order to avoid duplication, to help the reproducibility of research results and to avoid possible misunderstandings.

• Publication year

  2023

• Venue

  Biomolecules

• Publication date

  2023-08-22

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3390/biom13091275PMID 37759676PMCID 10526429
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Divide, conquer and reconstruct: How to solve the 3D structure of recalcitrant Micro-Exon Gene (MEG) protein from Schistosoma mansoni

  2023cited by this paper
• Search and sequence analysis tools services from EMBL-EBI in 2022

  2022cited by this paper
• UniProt: the Universal Protein Knowledgebase in 2023

  2022influential reference
• Harmonizing model organism data in the Alliance of Genome Resources

  2022cited by this paper
• OUP accepted manuscript

  2022influential reference
• Expasy, the Swiss Bioinformatics Resource Portal, as designed by its users

  2021cited by this paper
• Epitope Mapping of Exposed Tegument and Alimentary Tract Proteins Identifies Putative Antigenic Targets of the Attenuated Schistosome Vaccine

  2021cited by this paper
• The Schistosoma mansoni nuclear receptor FTZ-F1 maintains esophageal gland function via transcriptional regulation of meg-8.3

  2021cited by this paper
• Transposable Elements in the Genome of Human Parasite Schistosoma mansoni: A Review

  2021cited by this paper
• The Transcriptome of Schistosoma mansoni Developing Eggs Reveals Key Mediators in Pathogenesis and Life Cycle Propagation

  2021influential reference
• Identification of antigenic linear peptides in the soil-transmitted helminth and Schistosoma mansoni proteome

  2021cited by this paper
• Interactive Tree Of Life (iTOL) v5: an online tool for phylogenetic tree display and annotation

  2021cited by this paper
• Recombinant micro-exon gene 3 (MEG-3) antigens from Schistosoma mansoni failed to induce protection against infection but show potential for serological diagnosis.

  2020cited by this paper
• Interactions of amphipathic α-helical MEG proteins from Schistosomamansoni with membranes.

  2019cited by this paper
• Interaction of an esophageal MEG protein from schistosomes with a human S100 protein involved in inflammatory response.

  2017cited by this paper
• WormBase ParaSite − a comprehensive resource for helminth genomics

  2017influential reference
• Epigenetic origin of adaptive phenotypic variants in the human blood fluke Schistosoma mansoni

  2016cited by this paper
• Schistosoma mansoni Egg, Adult Male and Female Comparative Gene Expression Analysis and Identification of Novel Genes by RNA-Seq

  2015cited by this paper
• The Schistosome Esophagus Is a ‘Hotspot’ for Microexon and Lysosomal Hydrolase Gene Expression: Implications for Blood Processing

  2015influential reference
• Accelerated Evolution of Schistosome Genes Coding for Proteins Located at the Host–Parasite Interface

  2015cited by this paper
• The role played by alternative splicing in antigenic variability in human endo-parasites

  2014cited by this paper
• Sm10.3, a Member of the Micro-Exon Gene 4 (MEG-4) Family, Induces Erythrocyte Agglutination In Vitro and Partially Protects Vaccinated Mice against Schistosoma mansoni Infection

  2014influential reference
• The Schistosome Oesophageal Gland: Initiator of Blood Processing

  2013cited by this paper
• Folding factors and partners for the intrinsically disordered protein micro-exon gene 14 (MEG-14).

  2013cited by this paper
• The Schistosoma mansoni phylome: using evolutionary genomics to gain insight into a parasite’s biology

  2012cited by this paper
• A comparative proteomic study of the undeveloped and developed Schistosoma mansoni egg and its contents: the miracidium, hatch fluid and secretions.

  2010cited by this paper
• Bursts of transposition from non-long terminal repeat retrotransposon families of the RTE clade in Schistosoma mansoni.

  2010cited by this paper
• Protein variation in blood-dwelling schistosome worms generated by differential splicing of micro-exon gene transcripts.

  2010influential reference
• The contributions of the Genome Project to the study of schistosomiasis.

  2010cited by this paper
• The genome of the blood fluke Schistosoma mansoni

  2009influential reference
• Phylogeny-Aware Gap Placement Prevents Errors in Sequence Alignment and Evolutionary Analysis

  2008cited by this paper
• Extracellular lipid droplets promote hemozoin crystallization in the gut of the blood fluke Schistosoma mansoni

  2007cited by this paper
• Kalign, Kalignvu and Mumsa: web servers for multiple sequence alignment

  2006cited by this paper
• The Proteomics Protocols Handbook

  2005cited by this paper
• WebLogo: a sequence logo generator.

  2004cited by this paper
• MUSCLE: multiple sequence alignment with high accuracy and high throughput.

  2004influential reference
• The sequence of the human genome (abstract only)

  2001cited by this paper
• Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome

  2001cited by this paper
• T-Coffee: A novel method for fast and accurate multiple sequence alignment.

  2000cited by this paper
• Protein identification and analysis tools in the ExPASy server.

  1999cited by this paper
• Gapped BLAST and PSI-BLAST: a new generation of protein database search programs.

  1997cited by this paper
• Tandemly repeated exons encode 81-base repeats in multiple, developmentally regulated Schistosoma mansoni transcripts

  1988influential reference
• The neighbor-joining method: a new method for reconstructing phylogenetic trees.

  1987cited by this paper
• Sequence the Human Genome

  1986cited by this paper

• Transcriptional phenotype of the anti-parasitic benzodiazepine meclonazepam on the blood fluke Schistosoma mansoni

  2025cites this paper
• Apicomplexan Pore-Forming Toxins.

  2024cites this paper
• Transcriptional phenotype of the anti-parasitic benzodiazepine meclonazepam on the blood fluke Schistosoma mansoni

  2024cites this paper
• Schistosome esophageal gland factor MEG-8.2 drives host cell lysis and interacts with host immune proteins

  2024cites this paper