Impact of transposable elements in the architecture of genes of the human parasite Schistosoma mansoni.

The parasites belonging to the genus Schistosoma are agents of schistosomiasis, a disease estimated as affecting 235 million people in the world. To better understand the structure of Schistosoma mansoni genome, transposable elements (TEs) distribution and impact on gene structures were investigated. Our analyses indicated a differential distribution of TEs throughout the gene structure. Introns located at the 5' end of the genes are less prone to display TEs and introns lacking TEs tend to be shorter. Therefore, this could be one of the factors explaining previous data showing that S. mansoni displays shorter introns near the 5' end of the genes. Identification of six genes harboring TEs in their coding region suggests a positive contribution for the evolution of proteome repertory of S. mansoni. Taken together, our data suggest significant contributions of TEs to the architecture of genes from S. mansoni.