A transcriptomic study on the pepsin-activated infective larvae of Angiostrongylus cantonensis

► Only 54.5% of 918 unigenes from the activated infective larvae of Angiostrongylus cantonensis had significant sequence homology with known proteins. ► Cysteine protease, metalloproteases, and extracellular superoxide dismutase were highly expressed. ► Many of these unigenes encode protein complex and are associated with embryonic development ending in birth or egg hatching and protein binding. ► Among these unigenes, 280 are mapped to KEGG pathways and 134 had unique EC numbers. ► Treatment with pepsin-HCl not only digests the tissues of the snail host but also activates the infective larvae.