Transcript profiling of the murine immune response to invasive aspergillosis

Invasive aspergillosis is an opportunistic infection for which complex host-pathogen interactions determine infection outcome. In particular, immunosuppressive therapies and other host factors, such as neutropenia, need to be taken into account when modelling the immune response to aspergillosis. Mammalian models have been developed in order to gain a deeper understanding of these biological interactions, which cannot be easily replicated in vitro. In vivo transcript profiling is emerging as a valuable technique to gain an overview of host responses to invasive infections. This approach can be applied to specific tissue sections, whole organs, or peripheral blood leukocyte populations. Here we describe a microarray technique for analyzing transcript profiles from whole lung homogenates in the context of invasive aspergillosis. This approach has the advantage of enabling a broad overview of the immune responses that govern disease outcome. The generic techniques described, however, have wider application to other infectious processes and tissue types.