Discussion

Background: Fasciola hepatica, the liver fluke, is a common trematode parasite throughout the globe (Musah-Eroje and Flynn, 2018). It infects multiple species of mammals, particularly ruminants, as well as humans. As such, it represents a significant economic burden in livestock and health care.Bone Morphogenic Proteins (BMPs) are the largest subfamily of the Transforming Growth Factor-β (TGF-β) group of cytokines (Herrera et al., 2018) and they can have roles in dorsal-ventral patterning, organogenesis and cell differentiation. Aim: Preliminary work suggests that there are two FhBMP genes in the F. hepatica genome Here we propose to determine expression levels and tissue location of FhBMP3 and FhBMP15. Methods : Primers used for amplification of F. hepatica β -tubulin (BT) isotype-specific fragments βT2, βT3 were from (Fuchs et al 2013). Primers were designed in house for amplification of FhBMP3 and FhBMP15 based upon our initial sequence characterisation. Reactions were performed using Bio-line SensiMix SYBR on the Bio Rad. The 2^-DDCT Method was used for analysis of gene expression. Results: 2 primer/probe sets targeting BMP3 and 3 primer/probe sets for BMP15 were tested to pick the optimal set for amplification. Assays on F. hepatica adult samples showed that relative expression of FhBMP15 is higher in adults compared with FhBMP3. Conclusions: FhBMP15 shows higher expression in adults compared with FhBMP3 which suggests a lifestage specific role of FhBMP15. Mammalian BMP15 is known to be important in reproductive function and ovarian development. We will apply in situ hybridisation to localise the tissues expressing FhBMP15 and in the future attempt to block signalling.