From cyst to tapeworm: Transcriptome of Taenia solium in vitro activation and growth

The cestode Taenia solium develops as a tapeworm in the human intestine, starting from a larva (cyst). Upon maturing, it produces hundreds of thousands of infectious eggs. When ingested by pigs and humans, the eggs develop as cysts that lodge in various tissues, including the brain, leading to neurocysticercosis. Despite advances in understanding cestode biology through genomic and transcriptomic studies, particularly in model organisms, much remains unknown about the activation of T. solium cysts in the human digestive tract and the events that drive the development into adult worms—the stage responsible for dispersing the parasite. We present a transcriptome generated by Next Generation Sequencing from T. solium cysts activated in culture and collected at three different in vitro growth stages, as defined by their morphology. We identified differentially expressed genes and biological processes relevant to growth phases that can be further explored with the dataset. The information is valuable for identifying genes that regulate the molecular, metabolic, and cellular events leading to parasite maturation or elements driving its transmission. Overall design: Bulk RNA-seq was performed on pooled T. solium cysts under four conditions: non-cultured (NC), pre-evaginated (PRE), evaginated (EV), and post-evaginated (POST). Each condition was further analyzed with or without taurocholic acid supplementation (TA+ or TA-) to assess its role in promoting evagination.