Metabolic pathway reduction in parasitic flatworms.

The global number of proteins assigned to different metabolic pathway was compared between different parasitic flatworms, the free-living planaria and cattle predicted proteomes. Those pathways showing a significant reduction in the parasitic species in relation to those present in planaria are indicated (strongly reduced: less than 30% conservation; reduced: conservation between 30 and 80%; not significantly reduced: more than 80% conservation). While in general several pathways are reduced in all parasitic species, some pathways are differential between food borne trematodes (F. hepatica, O. viverrini, C. sinensis), blood flukes (S. mansoni and S. japonicum) and cestodes (E. multilocularis, H. microstoma and T. solium). Most notably some lipid metabolism and amino acid pathways (i.e. aliphatic amino acid degradation) are not reduced in FBT (green) while they are reduced in the other groups. In general, FBT seem to be less constrained than blood flukes, with cestodes being the most restricted metabolically.