| dc.description.abstract | Theileriaparva Muguga genome was the first to be sequenced and published in this genus of great economic, veterinary and biological importance to livestock industry in East and Central Africa. The aim was to aid in identification of schizont antigens for vaccine development and to enhance comparative genomics with other related apicomplexas. To add to the repertoire of resource base, T parva Marikebuni was recently sequenced because of its high genotypic diversity given that its infection cannot be-cross-protected by the Muguga cocktail vaccine. Reported here is the annotation and curation of protein-codingDNA sequences (CDS) of the partial genome of T. parva Marikebuni against T. parva Muguga via Artemis ComparisonTool (ACT). The genome was analyzed for both strain-specific micro- and macrosatellite markers (also called variable number tandem repeats, VNTRs) and codon usage bias of coding open reading frames (ORPs) containing the VNTR markers. The results reported here showedthat T parva Marikebuni has a compact but protracted nuclear genome, encoding over 3900 CDS. The majority of these CDS are predicted as multi-exonic, but with lower count number relative to those observed in T parva Muguga genome. The genome is ATrich with about 32.64% GC content and shares a perfectsynteny with the template genome in terms of gene structure and nucleotide composition. The CDS were assigned unique feature identifiers including putative functions from database gene ontologies (GO). This study was able to characterize and locate the VNTRs within both genomes. Most VNTRs were found to be located in the non-coding regions of the genomes but peculiarly, seven of them were located in exonic ORFs. The codon usages in these genomes are biased towards AT-rich codons as would positively be expected of AT-rich genomes. Statistical analysis at 0.05 confidence showed that there was no significant difference in the codon usage both within and between the Theileria genomes. These results will be crucial in building of T parva database and make mining of the micro- and macro-satellites for any future comparative studies achievable. The findings will further enhance the search and prediction 'of the many T parva genes with unknown functions. In addition, the present study will aid in definition of strain-specific markers if the whole T parva Marikebuni genome can be completely sequenced. | en_US |
