Summary

The opportunistic pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus (Af) is a saprophytic filamentous fungus that causes life-threatening invasive pulmonary diseases in immuno-compromised hosts. Aspergillosis now represents the most common invasive mould infection in our European countries. One of the reason for the increasing burden due to Af is the poor understanding of the metabolic pathways controling the multigenic virulence of the fungus in its host. Fuminomics is aimed at a multidisciplinary and fully integrated functional genomics analysis of the basic mechanisms of the opportunistic traits developed by Aspergillus fumigatus to infect host cells. Understanding how the fungal pathogen perceives and adapts to its host environment requires to undertake fundamental research into fungal gene expression and regulation.

• This objective has become now feasible because:
• The genome of A. fumigatus is now publicly available;
• Microarrays have been produced in Toulouse;
• Proteome analysis has been established in Jena that will also coordinate the bioinformatics of the project and
• Recent methodological improvements make now possible to generate knockout mutant strains on a large scale basis.

Fuminomics gathers the major laboratories studying A. fumigatus in Europe (18 laboratories from 8 different countries) and aims to reach its scientific goals through the integration of bioinformatics, transcriptomics, proteomics, physiology, molecular genetics and medicine.

Duration

4 years from 2008 to 2012