Transcriptome Profiling of the Human Pathogen Schistosoma japonicum

血吸虫病是由血吸虫属人血吸虫引起的寄生虫病，是非洲、拉丁美洲和东南亚的一个重大公共卫生问题。目前的控制方法还远远不够理想，全面了解允许血吸虫在其宿主内生长、发育和存活的遗传机制，为确定新的药物和疫苗靶点提供了最好的前景。微阵列技术可以同时监测数千种不同的基因，并确定它们在何时何地活跃，从而将基因组测序程序产生的大量数据置于生物学和功能背景中。微阵列为研究血吸虫生物学提供了一种独特的、前沿的工具。我们已经制造了一个微阵列，代表了大约20,000个血吸虫基因。我们将利用这一资源在血吸虫复杂的生命周期中对血吸虫基因表达进行大规模监测，针对具有区域重要性的亚洲血吸虫——日本血吸虫进行研究。这将为血吸虫发育过程中发生的遗传变化提供最大的见解，将极大地促进我们对寄生虫生长，发育和生存所需的适应的理解，并将识别参与关键生物过程的基因，所有这些都可能用于未来的干预和治疗。

The parasitic disease, schistosomiasis, caused by human bloodflukes of the genus Schistosoma, is a major public health issue in Africa, Latin America and South East Asia. Current control methods are far from ideal, and a comprehensive understanding of the genetic mechanisms which allow schistosomes to grow, develop and survive within their hosts affords the best prospect for identifying new drug and vaccine targets. Microarray technology allows simultaneous monitoring of thousands of different genes, and to determine where and when they are active, thus placing the mass of data generated by genome sequencing programs into a biological and functional context. Microarrays provide a unique, cutting-edge, tool for investigating schistosome biology. We have fabricated a microarray representing some 20,000 schistosome genes. We will use this resource to perform large scale monitoring of schistosome gene expression during the parasite's complex life cycle, targetting the regionally important Asian schistosome, Schistosoma japonicum, for study. This will provide the single largest insight into the genetic changes that occur during schistosome development, will greatly further our understanding of the adaptations needed for the growth, development and survival of the parasite, and will identify genes involved in key biological processes, all of which may be exploitable for future interventions and treatments.