Research Division, US Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21010, USA.
Toxicol Lett. 2010 Oct 20;198(3):297-303. doi: 10.1016/j.toxlet.2010.08.003. Epub 2010 Aug 12.
Medical research on the effects of chemical warfare agents (CWAs) has been ongoing for nearly 100 years, yet these agents continue to pose a serious threat to deployed military forces and civilian populations. CWAs are extremely toxic, relatively inexpensive, and easy to produce, making them a legitimate weapon of choice for terrorist organizations. While the mechanisms of action for many CWAs have been known for years, questions about their molecular effects following acute and chronic exposure remain largely unanswered. Global approaches that can pinpoint which cellular pathways are altered in response to CWAs and characterize long-term toxicity have not been widely used. Fortunately, innovations in genomics and proteomics technologies now allow for thousands of genes and proteins to be identified and subsequently quantified in a single experiment. Advanced bioinformatics software can also help decipher large-scale changes observed, leading to mapping of signaling pathways, functional characterization, and identification of potential therapeutic targets. Here we present an overview of how genomics and proteomics technologies have been applied to CWA research and also provide a series of questions focused on how these techniques could further our understanding of CWA toxicity.
医学对化学战剂（CWA）影响的研究已经进行了近 100 年，但这些战剂仍然对部署的军事部队和平民构成严重威胁。CWA 具有极强的毒性、相对低廉的价格和易于生产的特点，这使得它们成为恐怖组织的合法武器选择。尽管多年来人们已经了解了许多 CWA 的作用机制，但关于它们在急性和慢性暴露后对分子的影响的问题在很大程度上仍未得到解答。能够确定对 CWA 做出反应的细胞途径发生改变并描述长期毒性的全球方法尚未得到广泛应用。幸运的是，基因组学和蛋白质组学技术的创新现在允许在单个实验中鉴定和随后定量数千个基因和蛋白质。先进的生物信息学软件还可以帮助破译观察到的大规模变化，从而绘制信号通路图、进行功能特征描述以及确定潜在的治疗靶点。在这里，我们概述了基因组学和蛋白质组学技术如何应用于 CWA 研究，并提供了一系列问题，重点关注这些技术如何进一步帮助我们了解 CWA 毒性。
