Technological advances and genomics in metazoan parasites

Molecular biology has provided the means to identify parasite proteins, to define their function, patterns of expression and the means to produce them in quantity for subsequent functional analyses. Whole genome and expressed sequence tag programmes, and the parallel development of powerful bioinformatics tools, allow the execution of genome-wide between stage or species comparisons and meaningful gene-expression profiling. The latter can be undertaken with several new technologies such as DNA microarray and serial analysis of gene expression. Proteome analysis has come to the fore in recent years providing a crucial link between the gene and its protein product. RNA interference and ballistic gene transfer are exciting developments which can provide the means to precisely define the function of individual genes and, of importance in devising novel parasite control strategies, the effect that gene knockdown will have on parasite survival.