RNA interference in parasitic nematodes: development of a toolkit for functional genomics

线虫寄生虫是在动物中引起严重疾病的蛔虫。由于它们感染许多类型的农场动物，它们在英国和世界范围内造成了重大的经济损失，特别是在绵羊和牛中。目前，感染是通过用驱虫药治疗动物来控制的。蛔虫很快就会对这些药物产生抗药性，因此我们迫切需要开发新的控制感染的方法，无论是通过设计新药还是开发疫苗。为了做到这一点，我们需要定义新的“目标”;即蛔虫分子，这对它们在动物体内感染，发育和生存的能力至关重要。由于缺乏检测蛔虫分子功能的手段，这类研究一直受到阻碍，而蛔虫分子的功能通常是通过操纵它们的基因来完成的。该建议旨在开发一种可以在实验室中容易操作的干扰蛔虫中特定基因的方法。到项目结束时，我们希望能够在更大范围内应用这些方法。这将极大地帮助我们了解这些蛔虫作为寄生虫的特殊功能，并将成为开发新药和疫苗的强大新工具。

Nematode parasites are roundworms which cause severe disease in animals. As they infect many types of farm animals, they are responsible for significant economic losses in the United Kingdom and worldwide, particularly in sheep and cattle. At the moment, infection is controlled by treating the animals with drugs known as anthelmintics. The roundworms are quickly becoming resistant to these drugs, so we urgently need to develop new means of controlling infection, either by designing new drugs or developing vaccines. In order to do this we need to define new 'targets'; ie roundworm molecules which are crucial for their ability to infect, develop and survive inside animals. This type of research has been hindered by the lack of means to examine the function of roundworm molecules, which is normally perfomed by manipulating their genes. This proposal aims to develop a method of interfering with specific genes in a roundworm which can be easily manipulated in the laboratory. By the end of the project, we would hope to be in a position to apply these methods on a larger scale. This will greatly aid our understanding of the special features which allow these roundworms to act as parasites, and will be a powerful new tool in the development of new drugs and vaccines.