Publications by authors named "Samuel A Pimenta-Carvalho"
Aneuploidy is widely observed in both unicellular and multicellular eukaryotes, usually associated with adaptation to stress conditions. Chromosomal duplication stability is a tradeoff between the fitness cost of having unbalanced gene copies and the potential fitness gained from increased dosage of specific advantageous genes. Trypanosomatids, a family of protozoans that include species that cause neglected tropical diseases, are a relevant group to study aneuploidies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAccessing the Variability of Multicopy Genes in Complex Genomes using Unassembled Next-Generation Sequencing Reads: The Case of Trypanosoma cruzi Multigene Families.
João Luís Reis-Cunha Anderson Coqueiro-Dos-Santos Samuel Alexandre Pimenta-Carvalho Larissa Pinheiro Marques Gabriela F Rodrigues-Luiz
mBio
December 2022
Article Synopsis
- Repetitive elements in complex eukaryotic genomes, like that of Trypanosoma cruzi (the Chagas disease parasite), lead to fragmented assembly and underestimate gene variability, particularly in multigene families responsible for host interactions.
- * Our new read-based approach estimates the variability and copy number of key multigene families (MASP, TcMUC, and Trans-Sialidase) across multiple parasite strains, revealing distinct patterns of variation and higher variability in hybrid strains.
- * The findings suggest focusing on TS antigens could enhance diagnosis and vaccine design for Chagas disease, and the methodology is adaptable for studying multicopy genes in other organisms, enabling better insights into complex genomes.