The largest study to date on the genetic makeup of helminths has shown hundreds of new evidence of how to invade the human body, avoid its immune system and cause disease.
The results suggest potential treatments to get rid of these worms to help fight some of the most neglected tropical diseases, including river blindness, bilharzia and ancelostoma, affecting about one billion people worldwide.
"Parasitic worms are some of our oldest enemies and have evolved over millions of years to gain considerable experience in manipulating the immune system," said Mikdunka Mitreva of the McDonnell Institute of Genome at the University of Washington, who co-led the research work with colleagues at the Wellcome Sanger Institute at the University of Edinburgh.
The results of this study will lead to a deeper knowledge of the parasites' lives and a greater understanding of how the human immune system is used and controlled.
Parasitic infections can continue for many years and cause severe pain, physical disabilities, delayed growth in children and a social stigma associated with deformity.
Current drugs, including drugs developed by Sanofi and Johnson & Johnson, can have little effect and are often claimed by pharmaceutical companies or sold cheaply to those who need them. But the range of drugs that treat wormworm is still limited.
To try to improve the development of drugs and to understand how worms encroach upon human and animal bodies and animals, the research team compared the genetic map of up to 81 types of round and flat worms, 45 of which have never been genetically engineered.
The analysis found nearly 1 million new genes belonging to thousands of new genetic families and identified many potential drugs.
The findings were published in the journal Nature Genetics on Monday.
