Young Douglas, Stark Jaroslav, Kirschner Denise
Centre for Integrative Systems Biology at Imperial College, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
Nat Rev Microbiol. 2008 Jul;6(7):520-8. doi: 10.1038/nrmicro1919. Epub 2008 Jun 9.
The human immune response does an excellent job of clearing most of the pathogens that we encounter throughout our lives. However, some pathogens persist for the lifetime of the host. Despite many years of research, scientists have yet to determine the basis of persistence of most pathogens, and have therefore struggled to develop reliable prevention and treatment strategies. Systems biology provides a new and integrative tool that will help to achieve these goals. In this article, we use Mycobacterium tuberculosis as an example of how systems-biology approaches have begun to make strides in uncovering important facets of the host-pathogen interaction.
人类免疫反应在清除我们一生中遇到的大多数病原体方面表现出色。然而，一些病原体在宿主的一生中持续存在。尽管经过多年研究，科学家们尚未确定大多数病原体持续存在的基础，因此在制定可靠的预防和治疗策略方面一直面临困难。系统生物学提供了一种新的综合工具，将有助于实现这些目标。在本文中，我们以结核分枝杆菌为例，说明系统生物学方法如何开始在揭示宿主与病原体相互作用的重要方面取得进展。
