Exploring functional genomics for the development of novel intervention strategies against tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a serious threat to humankind, and humans have encountered the causative agent of TB, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), for more than 10,000 years. Despite rapid advances in technology, efforts to besiege this robust pathogen seem to fail. The availability of genome sequences of several MTB complex strains open a new era of MTB research, the functional genomics, which will provide guidelines for novel control measures. In recent years, a series of methods have been developed to explore the mechanisms employed by MTB to persist and cause disease in the host. DNA array technology enables us to perform comparative genomics of different MTB strains and to examine the gene expression profiles of MTB growing under diverse living conditions. The generated transcriptome data can be exploited for design of new drugs, especially against multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains, development of more efficient vaccines, and identification of biomarkers for better diagnosis.