Dioecious Schistosoma mansoni express divergent gene repertoires regulated by pairing

Pairing of adult Schistosoma mansoni parasites initiates a cascade of events including mating and egg production that ultimately leads to immuno-pathological lesions during schistosomiasis. To identify genes associated with this important biological process, we studied parasites isolated from single- versus mixed-sex cercariae-infected mice using DNA microarray analysis to uncover pair-regulated transcriptional profiles. We report that: (i) transcriptomes of parasites isolated from single-sex infections are significantly more complex than their mixed-sex counterparts; (ii) transcriptomes of single-sex males are distinct from mixed-sex males; and (iii) not all transcripts, previously hypothesized to be critical in female egg production, are regulated by pairing.