Comparative analysis of the miRNA profiles from Taenia solium and Taenia asiatica adult

Taenia solium and Taenia asiatica are zoonotic parasites which are transmitted between pigs and humans, with pigs acting as the intermediate host and humans as the definitive host. The aim of the present study was to compare the microRNA (miRNA) profiles between T. solium and T. asiatica by Solexa deep sequencing and bioinformatic analyses. A total of 18.26 and 15.24 million reads with high quality and three new miRNAs were obtained in each species, respectively. The two cestodes shared nearly the same level of total sRNA, but the known miRNAs were in a very different manner. Nucleotide guanine (G) and uracil (U) were the most frequently used first nucleotide in both T. solium and T. asiatica, respectively. Furthermore, it was also found that there were great differences in the kinds and copy numbers of miRNAs among the two Taenia species, which might indicate the different evolutions in the two parasites. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the characterization of the miRNA profiles for the two Taenia cestodes, and it would lay a foundation for further functional studies of miRNAs of T. solium and T. asiatica.