Abstract
A project to study the genome of the lymphatic filarial parasite Brugia malayi was initiated in 1995. This project has been funded by the World Health Organization and the UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) with the ultimate objective of identifying new vaccine candidates and drug targets for filariasis. Because fewer than 60 Brugia genes had been cloned by the end of 1994, it was determined that the first goal of the project would be the identification of thousands of new genes. These genes have been identified by randomly selecting clones for DNA sequence analysis (ESTs) from cDNA libraries that have been constructed from all life cycle stages of B. malayi. To date, over 22,000 Brugia ESTs have been entered into the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s dbEST database and about 8000 new genes have been identified (estimated to be about 40% of the complete set of B. malayi genes). In addition to new gene discovery, the 22,000 ESTs can be used to identify genes that are most highly expressed at each stage of development. Such analyses can provide insights into the biology of the organism and can suggest new molecules for study as drug targets and vaccine candidates.
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© 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Williams, S., Laney, S. (2002). Filarial Genomics: Gene Discovery and Gene Expression. In: The Filaria. World Class Parasites, vol 5. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47661-4_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47661-4_4
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