Williams Gwyn T, Farzaneh Farzin
School of Life Sciences, Keele University, ST5 5BG, Keele, UK.
Cancer Immunol Immunother. 2004 Mar;53(3):160-5. doi: 10.1007/s00262-003-0476-6. Epub 2004 Jan 13.
The size and complexity of the genomes of mammals in general, and humans in particular, is such that it will take many years to utilise this information to produce a genuine understanding of the control of cell behaviour. Since there are tens of thousands of genes to consider, the task of identifying those which play the most significant roles, biologically and medically, is both crucial and very demanding. Here we emphasise the importance of functional approaches to answering this question, i.e. the application of techniques which use the function of the gene itself in identifying the critical rate-limiting steps in biological processes. In this review, we use the functional analysis of one of the most important of these processes, the control of survival and apoptosis, to illustrate the power of a number of functional genomic strategies.
一般来说，哺乳动物的基因组，尤其是人类的基因组，其大小和复杂性使得利用这些信息来真正理解细胞行为的控制需要很多年。由于要考虑数以万计的基因，识别那些在生物学和医学上发挥最重要作用的基因的任务既至关重要又极具挑战性。在这里，我们强调功能方法在回答这个问题上的重要性，即应用利用基因本身功能来识别生物过程中关键限速步骤的技术。在这篇综述中，我们通过对这些过程中最重要的一个过程——生存和凋亡的控制进行功能分析，来说明一些功能基因组学策略的强大作用。
