Protein microarray technology for unraveling the antibody specificity repertoire against microbial proteomes

The genomes of microorganisms responsible for diseases of worldwide medical importance have been sequenced or will be available in the near future. Combinatorial cloning technologies for producing large numbers of proteins have been developed and high-throughput assays such as protein microarrays have been clinically validated for detecting the presence of antibodies directed against microbial antigens in human serum. These scientific and technical achievements offer the opportunity to investigate the natural immune response against the whole proteome of a variety of microorganisms. A powerful combination of genomic information, molecular tools and immunological assays are potentially available to identify the antigens that, either alone or in combination, function as targets of protective immunity, or could be used as markers for serodiagnosis.