Infectious disease — a genetic view

Abstract

Genetic analysis of resistance to infectious disease reveals many important cues that have led to new insights into the interaction between pathogen and host. This knowledge might help with a better prognosis for diseases, and to the development of novel therapeutics. This review focuses on genes and loci that control susceptibility to diseases with an important epidemiologic impact, such as AIDS, hepatitis B, gastritis and peptic ulcer, tuberculosis, leprosy, malaria, schistosomiasis and leishmaniasis. New perspectives for the integration of human and mouse genetics that contribute greatly to our understanding of regulatory mechanisms in health and disease, are also discussed.

Living with the enemy or uninvited guests: Functional genomics approaches to investigating host resistance or tolerance traits to a protozoan parasite, Theileria annulata, in cattle

“…Markers for genes conferring resistance could enable these genes to be specifically bred (introgression) into more productive livestock, as suggested by Hanotte et al (2003) for trypanotolerance traits in cattle. Furthermore, discovery of such gene variants may also identify novel pathways and mechanisms that control protection and/or pathology of relevance for vaccine and therapeutic development (Glass, 2001(Glass, , 2004Gruenheid and Gros, 2010;Jarosikova, 2011).…”