Authors

J Collins¹;  ¹ UT Southwestern Medical Center, United States

Discussion

Schistosomes cause morbidity and death throughout the developing world due to the massive numbers of eggs female worms deposit into the blood of their hosts. Studies dating back to the 1920s show that female schistosomes rely on constant physical contact with a male worm both to become and remain sexually mature; the molecular details governing this process remain elusive. In this seminar, I will detail our discovery of a novel dipeptide, β-alanyl-tryptamine, that is synthesized by a non-ribosomal peptide synthetase in male worms in response to male:female pairing. Using approaches such as scRNAseq and metabolomics we demonstrate that male worms possess a population of ciliated neuronal cells that secrete β-alanyl-tryptamine where it can act directly on female worms to trigger sexual development and egg-laying. Together, our data suggest new avenues for therapeutic intervention while also uncovering an unexpected role for non-ribosomal peptides as metazoan signaling molecules.