MacHugh D E, Gormley E, Park S D E, Browne J A, Taraktsoglou M, O'Farrelly C, Meade K G
Animal Genomics Laboratory, UCD School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine, College of Life Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
Transbound Emerg Dis. 2009 Aug;56(6-7):204-14. doi: 10.1111/j.1865-1682.2009.01082.x. Epub 2009 May 26.
Bovine tuberculosis (BTB), caused by Mycobacterium bovis, continues to pose a threat to livestock worldwide and, as a zoonotic infection, also has serious implications for human health. The implementation of comprehensive surveillance programmes to detect BTB has been successful in reducing the incidence of infection in many countries, yet BTB has remained recalcitrant to eradication in several EU states, particularly in Ireland and the UK. There are well-recognized limitations in the use of the current diagnostics to detect all infected animals and this has led to renewed efforts to uncover novel diagnostic biomarkers that may serve to enhance the performance of the tests. Studies of single immunological parameters have so far been unable to unlock the complexities of the immune response to mycobacterial infection. However, the development of high-throughput methods including pan-genomic gene expression technologies such as DNA microarrays has facilitated the simultaneous identification and analysis of thousands of genes and their interactions during the immune response. In addition, the application of these new genomic technologies to BTB has identified pathogen-associated immune response signatures of host infection. The objective of these investigations is to understand the changing profile of immune responses throughout the course of infection and to identify biomarkers for sensitive diagnosis, particularly during the early stages of infection. Transcriptional profiling via microarray and more recently via next-generation sequencing technologies may lead to the development of specific and sensitive diagnostics for M. bovis infection and will enhance the prospect of eradication of tuberculosis from cattle populations.
牛结核病（BTB）由牛分枝杆菌引起，持续对全球牲畜构成威胁，并且作为一种人畜共患感染，对人类健康也具有严重影响。实施全面监测计划以检测牛结核病已在许多国家成功降低了感染发生率，然而在几个欧盟国家，尤其是爱尔兰和英国，牛结核病仍然难以根除。当前用于检测所有感染动物的诊断方法存在公认的局限性，这促使人们重新努力寻找可能有助于提高检测性能的新型诊断生物标志物。迄今为止，对单一免疫参数的研究尚无法揭示对分枝杆菌感染的免疫反应的复杂性。然而，包括DNA微阵列等全基因组基因表达技术在内的高通量方法的发展，促进了在免疫反应过程中同时鉴定和分析数千个基因及其相互作用。此外，这些新的基因组技术在牛结核病中的应用已经确定了宿主感染的病原体相关免疫反应特征。这些研究的目的是了解感染过程中免疫反应的变化情况，并识别用于敏感诊断的生物标志物，特别是在感染早期。通过微阵列以及最近通过下一代测序技术进行转录谱分析，可能会导致开发针对牛分枝杆菌感染的特异性和敏感性诊断方法，并将提高从牛群中根除结核病的前景。
