Wells Jerry M, Bennik Marjon H J
Institute of Food Research, Norwich Research Park, Norwich NR4 7UA, UK.
Nutr Res Rev. 2003 Jun;16(1):21-35. doi: 10.1079/NRR200358.
Despite continued efforts to prevent and control food-borne illness it remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality throughout the world. The problem is made worse by the continuous threat from emerging pathogens that can evolve to adapt to the different environments resulting from ongoing changes in farming or food production. The present review discusses the impact of genomics and post-genomic technologies on research in the area of food-borne bacterial pathogens. Genomics research is moving at a fast pace and these are exciting times for microbial research. The genome sequences of approximately ninety bacterial genomes have recently been completed and genome sequences are already available for several food-borne pathogens and closely related species. Comparative genomics is providing new insights into mechanisms of bacterial evolution and has helped in determining virulence factors of pathogens. Genomics has also provided tools such as DNA microarrays that can be used to examine the genetic composition and whole genome expression profiles of bacterial strains by hybridisation of fluorescently labelled DNA. This is helping to identify genes associated with particular phenotypes such as virulence and host preference, and to identify genes in uncharacterised genomes of closely related organisms. Microarrays are also being developed for the detection of food-borne pathogens and investigation of the evolutionary relationship between different species of bacteria. The review concludes with a discussion of the use of functional genomics tools to investigate bacterial responses to environmental stresses and also host-pathogen interactions. These research areas will be valuable in designing future strategies for controlling food-borne pathogens.
尽管人们不断努力预防和控制食源性疾病，但它仍是全球发病和死亡的主要原因。新出现的病原体不断构成威胁，它们会进化以适应因农业或食品生产持续变化而产生的不同环境，这使得问题更加严重。本综述讨论了基因组学和后基因组技术对食源细菌性病原体研究领域的影响。基因组学研究进展迅速，对于微生物研究来说，这是令人兴奋的时代。最近已经完成了约90种细菌基因组的测序，几种食源性病原体及其密切相关物种的基因组序列也已可得。比较基因组学为细菌进化机制提供了新见解，并有助于确定病原体的毒力因子。基因组学还提供了诸如DNA微阵列等工具，可通过荧光标记DNA的杂交来检测细菌菌株的遗传组成和全基因组表达谱。这有助于识别与特定表型（如毒力和宿主偏好）相关的基因，并识别密切相关生物体未表征基因组中的基因。微阵列也正在被开发用于检测食源性病原体以及研究不同细菌物种之间的进化关系。综述最后讨论了使用功能基因组学工具来研究细菌对环境压力的反应以及宿主-病原体相互作用。这些研究领域对于设计未来控制食源性病原体的策略将具有重要价值。
