title: The impact of comparative genomics on infectious disease research.
abstract: The past decade has witnessed a revolution in infectious disease research, fuelled by the accumulation of a huge amount of DNA sequence data. The avalanche of genome sequence information has largely promoted the development of comparative genomics, which exploits available genome sequences to perform either inter- or intra-species comparisons of bacterial genome contents, or performs comparisons between the human genome and those of other organisms. This review aims to summarize how comparative genomics is being extensively used in infectious disease research, such as in the studies to identify virulence determinants, antimicrobial drug targets, vaccine candidates and new markers for diagnostics. These applications hold considerable promise for alleviating the burden of infectious diseases in the coming years.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Tianjin Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin 300060, China.
authors.forename: Ren
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Chun-Ting
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence / Q000235:genetics; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000235:genetics* / Q000382:microbiology; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D015195:Drug Design; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D010597:Pharmacogenetics / Q000379:methods; D012107:Research Design; D037521:Virulence Factors
chemical_list: D037521:Virulence Factors