Transcriptome Profiling of the Human Pathogen Schistosoma japonicum

血吸虫病是由血吸虫属人类血吸虫引起的一种寄生虫病，在非洲、拉丁美洲和东南亚是一个主要的公共卫生问题。目前的控制方法还远远不够理想，全面了解允许血吸虫在宿主体内生长、发育和存活的遗传机制，为确定新药和疫苗靶点提供了最好的前景。微阵列技术允许同时监测数千个不同的基因，并确定它们在哪里和何时活跃，从而将基因组测序计划产生的大量数据置于生物和功能背景中。微阵列为研究血吸虫生物学提供了一种独特的尖端工具。我们已经制作了一个代表大约20,000个血吸虫基因的微阵列。我们将利用这一资源对血吸虫复杂生命周期中的血吸虫基因表达进行大规模监测，以亚洲地区重要的血吸虫--日本血吸虫为研究对象。这将为血吸虫发育过程中发生的基因变化提供最大的单一洞察力，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学过程的基因，所有这些都可能被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.