The purpose of a B. saltans genome sequence is to provide an 'outgroup' for comparative genomic studies. As it is among the closest bodonid relatives of the trypanosomatids, it will provide a model of the ancestral trypanosomatid to distinguish those derived parts of the parasite genomes (i.e., unique trypanosomatid adaptations) from those which are a legacy of the free-living ancestor. This objective can be resolved into three principal comparative issues:

1. Trypanosomatid disease; understanding how human trypanosomatid parasites acquired their distinct pathological strategies;

2. Evolution of parasitism; understanding how the ancestral trypanosomatid became parasitic in terms of derived innovations (e.g., cell surfaces) and loss of genomic repertoire;

3. Eukaryotic evolution; understanding how typical kinetoplastid features (e.g., glycosomes) evolved and how these might have been modified for parasitism.

Published Genome Data

A pilot study that described ~400kbp of B. saltans genome sequenced from a whole genome fosmid library has been published (Jackson, Quail & Berriman 2008, BMC Genomics, 9:594). A draft sequence for the entire B. saltans genome has now been produced using Illumina HiSeq technology. The data were derived from two libraries of 300bp and 3kbp insert sizes respectively. Sequence assembly was carried out using Velvet and subsequently corrected for misassembly using large-insert reads and custom scripts.

The draft genome sequence contains 39,864,435bp at ~110x coverage, arranged into 2,256 scaffolds. The average scaffold length is 16,804.54bp and the largest scaffold is 190,927bp long. N50 = 31,548bp (n=372).

The draft genome annotation contains 18,963 coding sequences. When analyzed using CEGMA, this covers 78% of the conserved sequence set.

In addition, we have produced a draft transcriptome using RNAseq technology. 85.5% of reads mapped to the genome assembly. The RNAseq reads were assembled using Velvet, producing 8,901 putative transcripts and transcript fragments.

All data can be downloaded via our ftp site: ftp://ftp.sanger.ac.uk/pub/pathogens/Bodo/saltans

and searched using the GeneDB BLAST server: http://www.genedb.org/blast/submitblast/GeneDB_Bsaltans