Schistosoma mansoni Genome Project

The Disease

Schistosomiasis affects approximately 210 million people in 76 countries, is a cause of serious morbidity and is estimated to account for greater than a quarter of a million deaths per annum. Schistosomiasis is caused by blood flukes of the genus Schistosoma (phylum Platyhelminthes) and S. mansoni is one of the three major subspecies. Further information can be found on the World Health Organization web site .

The Genome

The S. mansoni genome is 363Mb in size, G+C content is approximately 35% and encodes at least 11,809 genes. The Pathogen Genomics group at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute played a major role in sequencing the genome of S. mansoni (see Berriman et al. ) and is continuing to refine genome assembly and curation.

Data Release

The S. mansoni genome database now contains v4.0 of the genome. Some gene predictions may have been deleted or added between the versions. Both the v4.0 and v3.1 gene predictions can be viewed as separate tracks of annotation in Gbrowse . Improved genome builds and new annotations are constantly being added to GeneDB, so if you wish to perform a large scale analysis please contact Dr. Matt Berriman .