{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,5]],"date-time":"2026-10-05T21:01:33Z","timestamp":1791234093089,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":35,"publisher":"American Society of Parasitologists","issue":"3","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Journal of Parasitology"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,23]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease caused by human-infective schistosomes (Trematoda: Schistosoma). Intestinal schistosomiasis in sub-Saharan Africa and the Neotropics is caused primarily by Schistosoma mansoni and is transmitted by several Biomphalaria planorbid snail species. Adult male and female parasites in the definitive mammalian host pair and reside in the mesenteric vasculature; females lay eggs that traverse the intestinal wall to be excreted, but a significant proportion become trapped in host tissues, especially the liver, eliciting granulomatous immune responses that underlie most disease pathology. Schistosoma mansoni is the primary lab model for research, and, due to the abundance and ease of harvesting, liver-derived eggs are almost exclusively used to maintain the life cycle and to study miracidia and subsequent larval stages. However, recent evidence shows that eggs from the liver or intestine have key morphometric, transcriptomic, and antigenic differences, which can profoundly affect experimental outcomes. To determine whether these differences extend to the miracidia stage, we compared miracidia hatched from mouse liver and intestine-derived eggs, sequencing their transcriptomes and assessing their unstimulated behaviors over time in an arena allowing for high-resolution tracking of miracidia behavior at a large spatiotemporal scale. We found that while transcriptomic profiles of miracidia are distinguishable based on egg tissue origin, only a small subset of genes is differentially expressed. Further, the basic, unstimulated behavior of miracidia that developed in different niches of the definitive host was significantly different. These different behavioral programs may reflect intrinsic developmental programming or differential viability and hardiness related to tissue origin. These findings underscore the importance of egg source in experimental design and interpretation, with significant implications for the maintenance of laboratory life cycles and the use of miracidia in schistosomiasis research.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1645\/25-69","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,24]],"date-time":"2026-06-24T22:37:02Z","timestamp":1782340622000},"page":"360-367","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Tissue-Specific Origin of Eggs in the Definitive Host Drives Transcriptomic and Behavioral Differences in Schistosoma mansoni Miracidia"],"prefix":"10.1645","volume":"112","author":[{"given":"Sophie","family":"Willett","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Sonja A.","family":"Olson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Rachel V.","family":"Horejsi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Chase N.","family":"Nelson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5909-4190","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Nicolas J.","family":"Wheeler","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1220","reference":[{"key":"1","unstructured":"S. Andrews,  \"FastQC A quality control tool for high throughput sequence data.\"  (2023)"},{"key":"3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"T. Attenborough, K. A. Rawlinson, C. L. Diaz Soria, et al.  \"eLife.\"  13, \"A single-cell atlas of the miracidium larva of Schistosoma mansoni reveals cell types, developmental pathways, and tissue architecture.\" RP95628 (2024)","DOI":"10.7554\/eLife.95628.3"},{"key":"5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"S. K. Buddenborg, A. Tracey, D. J. Berger, et al.  \"bioRxiv.\"  \"Assembled chromosomes of the blood fluke Schistosoma mansoni provide insight into the evolution of its ZW sex-determination system.\" (2021)","DOI":"10.1101\/2021.08.13.456314"},{"key":"7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"W. B. Dewitt,  \"Experimental Parasitology.\"  4, \"Influence of temperature on penetration of snail hosts by Schistosoma mansoni miracidia.\" 271 (1955)","DOI":"10.1016\/0014-4894(55)90030-8"},{"key":"8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"A. Dobin, C. A. Davis, F. Schlesinger, et al.  \"Bioinformatics (Oxford, England).\"  29, \"STAR: Ultrafast universal RNA-seq aligner.\" 15 (2013)","DOI":"10.1093\/bioinformatics\/bts635"},{"key":"10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"R. V. Horejsi, C. N. Nelson, A. De Ruyter, et al.  \"PLOS Pathogens.\"  21, \"Quantitative ethology of schistosome miracidia characterizes a conserved snail peptide that inhibits host recognition.\" e1013766 (2025)","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.ppat.1013766"},{"key":"11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"K. L. Howe, B. J. Bolt, M. Shafie, et al.  \"Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology.\"  215, \"WormBase ParaSite \u2013 a comprehensive resource for helminth genomics.\" 2 (2017)","DOI":"10.1016\/j.molbiopara.2016.11.005"},{"key":"12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"A. D. Jurberg, T. Gon\u00e7alves, T. A. Costa, et al.  \"Development Genes and Evolution.\"  210, \"The embryonic development of Schistosoma mansoni eggs: Proposal for a new staging system.\" 219 (2009)","DOI":"10.1007\/s00427-009-0285-9"},{"key":"13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"I. G. Kagan  and S. J. Geiger  \"Journal of Parasitology.\"  51, \"The susceptibility of three strains of Australorbis glabratus to Schistosoma mansoni from Brazil and Puerto Rico.\" 622 (1965)","DOI":"10.2307\/3276245"},{"key":"14","unstructured":"F. Lewis  and S. Schmid  \"Exposure of snails to miracidia, Biomedical Research Institute.\"  (2022)"},{"key":"20","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"Z. Lu, G. Sankaranarayanan, K. A. Rawlinson, et al.  \"Frontiers in Tropical Diseases.\"  2, \"The transcriptome of Schistosoma mansoni developing eggs reveals key mediators in pathogenesis and life cycle propagation.\" 713123 (2021)","DOI":"10.3389\/fitd.2021.713123"},{"key":"22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"P. R. Mason  and P. J. Fripp  \"Journal of Parasitology.\"  62, \"Analysis of the movements of Schistosoma mansoni miracidia using dark-ground photography.\" 721 (1976)","DOI":"10.2307\/3278950"},{"key":"23","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"D. P. McManus, D. W. Dunne, M. Sacko, et al.  \"Nature Reviews. Disease Primers.\"  4, \"Schistosomiasis.\" 13 (2018)","DOI":"10.1038\/s41572-018-0013-8"},{"key":"25","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"T. Pennance, J. A. Tennessen, J. M. Spaan, et al.  \"Nature Communications.\"  16, \"Genes linked to schistosome resistance identified in a genome-wide association study of African snail vectors.\" 6918 (2025)","DOI":"10.1038\/s41467-025-61760-8"},{"key":"26","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"K. Peterkov\u00e1, K. Kone\u010dn\u00fd, T. Mach\u00e1\u010dek, et al.  \"PLOS Pathogens.\"  20, \"Winners vs. losers: Schistosoma mansoni intestinal and liver eggs exhibit striking differences in gene expression and immunogenicity.\" e1012268 (2024)","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.ppat.1012268"},{"key":"28","unstructured":"J. Pinheiro  and D. Bates  \"nlme: Linear and nonlinear mixed effects models, version 3.1-168.\"  (2025)"},{"key":"29","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"P. Poteaux, C. Ripoll, A. Sarrazin, et al.  \"Fish & Shellfish Immunology.\"  153, \"Breaking Biomphalaria black box by in situ revelation of fluorescent Schistosoma mansoni parasites.\" 109800 (2024)","DOI":"10.1016\/j.fsi.2024.109800"},{"key":"30","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"E. Roger, C. Grunau, R. J. Pierce, et al.  \"PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.\"  2, \"Controlled chaos of polymorphic mucins in a Metazoan parasite (Schistosoma mansoni) interacting with its invertebrate host (Biomphalaria glabrata).\" e330 (2008)","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pntd.0000330"},{"key":"32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"F. G. Schreiber  and M. Schubert  \"Journal of Parasitology.\"  35, \"Results of exposure of the snail Australorbis glabratus to varying numbers of miracidia of Schistosoma mansoni.\" 590 (1949)","DOI":"10.2307\/3273638"},{"key":"34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"O. D. Standen,  \"Annals of Tropical Medicine & Parasitology.\"  43, \"Experimental schistosomiasis: II.\u2014Maintenance of Schistosoma mansoni in the laboratory, with some notes on experimental infection with S. haematobium.\" 268 (1949)","DOI":"10.1080\/00034983.1949.11685412"},{"key":"35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"O. D. Standen,  \"Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.\"  45, \"The effects of temperature, light and salinity upon the hatching of the ova of schistosoma mansoni.\" 225 (1951)","DOI":"10.1016\/S0035-9203(51)90917-0"},{"key":"27","unstructured":""},{"key":"6","unstructured":"J. Cohen,  \"Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences.\"  579 (1988)"},{"key":"19","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"M. I. Love, W. Huber, S. Anders,  \"Genome Biology.\"  15, \"Moderated estimation of fold change and dispersion for RNA-seq data with DESeq2.\" 550 (2014)","DOI":"10.1186\/s13059-014-0550-8"},{"key":"24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"K. Okonechnikov, A. Conesa, F. Garc\u00eda-Alcalde,  \"Bioinformatics.\"  32, \"Qualimap 2: Advanced multi-sample quality control for high-throughput sequencing data.\" 292 (2016)","DOI":"10.1093\/bioinformatics\/btv566"},{"key":"2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"J. Archer, S. M. Yeo, G. Gadd, et al.  \"Current Research in Parasitology & Vector-Borne Diseases.\"  5, \"Development, validation, and pilot application of a high throughput molecular xenomonitoring assay to detect Schistosoma mansoni and other trematode species within Biomphalaria freshwater snail hosts.\" 100174 (2024)","DOI":"10.1016\/j.crpvbd.2024.100174"},{"key":"33","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"J. M. Spaan, T. Pennance, M. R. Laidemitt, et al.  \"Current Research in Parasitology & Vector-Borne Diseases.\"  3, \"Multi-strain compatibility polymorphism between a parasite and its snail host, a neglected vector of schistosomiasis in Africa.\" 100120 (2023)","DOI":"10.1016\/j.crpvbd.2023.100120"},{"key":"16","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"H. Li, B. Handsaker, A. Wysoker, et al.  \"Bioinformatics.\"  25, \"The sequence alignment\/map format and SAMtools.\" 2078 (2009)","DOI":"10.1093\/bioinformatics\/btp352"},{"key":"9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"P. Ewels, M. Magnusson, S. Lundin, et al.  \"Bioinformatics.\"  32, \"MultiQC: Summarize analysis results for multiple tools and samples in a single report.\" 3047 (2016)","DOI":"10.1093\/bioinformatics\/btw354"},{"key":"21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"M. Martin,  \"EMBnet.journal.\"  17, \"Cutadapt removes adapter sequences from high-throughput sequencing reads.\" 10 (2011)","DOI":"10.14806\/ej.17.1.200"},{"key":"15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"F. A. Lewis, M. A. Stirewalt, C. P. Souza, et al.  \"Journal of Parasitology.\"  72, \"Large-scale laboratory maintenance of Schistosoma mansoni, with observations on three schistosome\/snail host combinations.\" 813 (1986)","DOI":"10.2307\/3281829"},{"key":"31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"K. S. Saladin,  \"Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Parasitenkunde.\"  60, \"Behavioral parasitology and perspectives on miracidial host-finding.\" 197 (1979)","DOI":"10.1007\/BF00929167"},{"key":"17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Y. Liao, G. K. Smyth, W. Shi,  \"Bioinformatics.\"  30, \"featureCounts: an efficient general purpose program for assigning sequence reads to genomic features.\" 923 (2014)","DOI":"10.1093\/bioinformatics\/btt656"},{"key":"18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"F. C. Lombardo, V. Pasche, G. Panic, et al.  \"Nature Protocols.\"  14, \"Life cycle maintenance and drug-sensitivity assays for early drug discovery in Schistosoma mansoni.\" 461 (2019)","DOI":"10.1038\/s41596-018-0101-y"},{"key":"4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Y. Benjamini  and Y. Hochberg  \"Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Methodological).\"  57, \"Controlling the false discovery rate: A practical and powerful approach to multiple testing.\" 289 (1995)","DOI":"10.1111\/j.2517-6161.1995.tb02031.x"}],"container-title":["Journal of Parasitology"],"original-title":[],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,5]],"date-time":"2026-10-05T20:45:36Z","timestamp":1791233136000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/bioone.org\/journals\/journal-of-parasitology\/volume-112\/issue-3\/25-69\/Tissue-Specific-Origin-of-Eggs-in-the-Definitive-Host-Drives\/10.1645\/25-69.full"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,23]]},"references-count":35,"journal-issue":{"issue":"3","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,1]]}},"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1645\/25-69","relation":{},"ISSN":["0022-3395","1937-2345"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0022-3395","type":"print"},{"value":"1937-2345","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,23]]}}}