Figure 3. Expression levels of Sj-TSP-2e by real-time PCR.

cDNAs were amplified with mRNA isolated from different stages of S. japonicum using specific primers designed from the conserved regions of Sj-TSP-2e. Ce, cercariae; So, schistosomula; Pw, paired adult worms; Ma, males; Fe, females. The bars (and *, X axis) show the fold changes compared with the cercarial stage. We used NADH-ubiquinone reductase as a house-keeping gene to calculate the number of copies of the gene expressed in each of the stages, and then converted these to fold changes by comparison with the number of copies in cercariae.