Evaluation of this article at F1000Biology is available through this weblink:

http://www.f1000biology.c...

PS: F1000Biology is available to subscribers only. A simple version of the evaluation is placed below for fair use.

Mining Predicted Essential Genes of Brugia malayi for Nematode Drug Targets.
Kumar S, Chaudhary K, Foster JM, Novelli JF, Zhang Y, Wang S, Spiro D, Ghedin E, Carlow CK
PLoS ONE 2007 2(11):e1189

Faculty Member:

Niyaz Ahmed
Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, India
Faculty:
Microbiology

Selected by | Niyaz Ahmed
Evaluated 23 Nov 2007

Relevant Sections:

CHEMICAL BIOLOGY > Protein chemistry & proteomics | Small molecule chemistry
GENOMICS & GENETICS > Genomics
MICROBIOLOGY > Medical microbiology | Microbial evolution & genomics | Parasitology
PHARMACOLOGY & DRUG DISCOVERY > Antimicrobial agents | Drug discovery & design | Pharmacogenomics

Recommendation: Must Read
F1000 Factor: 6.0
Tags: Hypothesis, New Finding, Technical Advance, Novel Drug Target

Faculty Member Comments:

The metazoan pathogen Brugia malayi threatens about 1.5 billion people worldwide. This commendable study has used the draft genome sequence of B. malayi to undertake the first rational drug target selection methodology on a genome-wide scale for this pathogen. The greatest handicap that this study faced is the dearth of complete parasitic nematode genomes. B. malayi is the only parasitic nematode for which a genomic sequence is available. As a consequence, the functional genomics data concerning B. malayi are also limited and it would be impossible to predict which B. malayi specific genes would be essential or important for parasite viability. The extent of the similarity between C. elegans and B. malayi is another concern because not all essential C. elegans genes have orthologs in B. malayi. Dearth of sequence data also has a bearing on the study design, for example, phyletic conservation could have been the best strategy to identify essential genes across parasitic nematodes. Despite all this, the authors identify and list about 600 potential drug targets, across which dozens of future RNAi experts would be able to play for at least 5-10 years. More interesting would be the targets that most likely underpin important processes shared across Metazoa, and the ones which are functionally analogous to proteins present in mammals, yet bear no sequence similarity. The selection process used by the authors means that the identified drug targets are important for key nematode biological processes (e.g. central metabolism, control of gene expression). However, I wonder if choke-point analysis (Rahman, SA and Schomburg, D. Bioinformatics 2006, 22:1767-74 [PMID:16682421]) would be a better approach to validate these targets in the future once mapping of proteins onto metabolic pathways in B. malayi is completed.

Competing interests: None declared
Evaluated 23 Nov 2007

How to cite the Faculty of 1000 Biology evaluation(s) for this paper
1) To cite all the evaluations for this article:
Faculty of 1000 Biology: evaluations for Kumar S et al PLoS ONE 2007 2 (11) :e1189 http://www.f1000biology.c...
2) To cite an evaluation by a specific Faculty member:
Niyaz Ahmed: Faculty of 1000 Biology, 23 Nov 2007 http://www.f1000biology.c...