Transcriptional Profiling of Dendritic Cells in Response to Pathogens

The immune system has developed mechanisms to detect and initiate responses to a continual barrage of immunological challenges. Dendritic cells (DC) play a major role as immune surveillance agents. To accomplish this function, DC are equipped with highly efficient mechanisms to detect pathogens, to capture, process and present antigens, and to initiate T-cell responses. The recognition of molecular signatures of potential pathogens is accomplished by membrane receptor of the toll-like family (TLRs), which activates DC, leading to the initiation of adaptive immunity. High-density DNA microarray analysis of host gene expression provides a powerful method of examining microbial pathogens from a novel perspective. The ability to survey the responses of a large subset of the host genome, and to find patterns among the profiles from many different microorganisms and hosts, allows fundamental questions to be addressed about the basis of pathogen recognition, the features of the interaction between host and pathogen and the mechanisms of host defense and microbial virulence. The biological insights thus gained are likely to lead to major shifts in our approach to the diagnosis, treatment, assessment of prognosis, and prevention in many types of infectious diseases within a decade.