A systems biological view of intracellular pathogens

As biomedical research becomes increasingly data-intensive, it is increasingly essential to integrate genomic-scale datasets, so as to generate a more holistic picture of complex biological processes. The systems biology paradigm may differ in strategy from traditional reductionist scientific methods, but the goal remains the same: to generate tenable hypotheses driving the experimental elucidation of biological mechanisms. Intracellular pathogens provide an excellent opportunity for systems analysis, as many of these organisms are amenable to genetic manipulation, allowing their biology to be played off against that of the host. Moreover, many of the most fundamental biological properties of these microbes (host cell invasion, immune evasion, intracellular replication, long-term persistence) are directly linked to pathogenesis and readily quantifiable using genomic-scale technologies. In this review, we summarize and discuss some of the available and foreseeable functional genomics datasets pertaining to host-pathogen interactions and suggest that the host-pathogen interface represents a promising, tractable challenge for systems biological analysis. Success will require developing and leveraging new technologies, expanding data acquisition, and increasing public access to comprehensive datasets, to assemble quantitative and testable models of the host-pathogen relationship.