Comparative genomics of the major parasitic worms Coghlan, Avril Cruz-Bustos, Teresa Osuna Carrillo De Albornoz, Antonio Gómez Samblás, María Mercedes We thank: the WSI DNA Pipeline teams, particularly C. Griffiths, N. Park, L. Shirley, M. Quail, D. Willey and M. Jones; WSI Pathogen Informatics, especially J. Keane; T.D. Otto for bioinformatics advice; MGI faculty and staff, especially M. Schmidt, C. Fronick, M. Cordes, T. Miner, R. Fulton and other members of the Project Management, Resource Bank, Library Construction and Data Production teams; D. Hughes, M. Muffato at the European Bioinformatics Institute, for support running Maker and Ensembl Compara; and K. Gharbi and his staff at Edinburgh Genomics for support; V. Gelmedin, R. Fujiwara, F. Brazil, the late Purnomo (University of Indonesia, Jakarta), J. Ahringer, E.S. Hernández Redondo, F. Jackson, E. Redman, A. Ito, J. Saldaña, M. Fernanda Dominguez, W. Gause, M. Badets, I.E. Samonte, A. Koehler, M. Nielsen, L.S. Mansfield, T. Sonstegard for sample preparation. Parasitic nematodes (roundworms) and platyhelminths (flatworms) cause debilitating chronic infections of humans and animals, decimate crop production and are a major impediment to socioeconomic development. Here we report a broad comparative study of 81 genomes of parasitic and non-parasitic worms. We have identified gene family births and hundreds of expanded gene families at key nodes in the phylogeny that are relevant to parasitism. Examples include gene families that modulate host immune responses, enable parasite migration though host tissues or allow the parasite to feed. We reveal extensive lineage specific differences in core metabolism and protein families historically targeted for drug development. From an in silico screen, we have identified and prioritized new potential drug targets and compounds for testing. This comparative genomics resource provides a much-needed boost for the research community to understand and combat parasitic worms. 2019-11-22T07:53:23Z 2019-11-22T07:53:23Z 2018-11-05 journal article Coghlan, A., Tyagi, R., Cotton, J.A. et al. Comparative genomics of the major parasitic worms. Nat Genet 51, 163–174 (2019) [doi:10.1038/s41588-018-0262-1] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/58015 10.1038/s41588-018-0262-1 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ open access Atribución 3.0 España Springer Nature