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Interpretation of the complexity of innate immune responses by functional genomics

Abstract

Understanding how the immune system is regulated and responds to pathogens will require whole-system approaches, because the study of single immunological parameters has, so far, been unable to unlock immune-system complexity. Global transcription analysis using microarray technologies provides a new approach to the description of complex biological phenomena. Here, we discuss insights into innate immunity that have been provided by genome-wide approaches and their impact on the interpretation of immune-system complexity.

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Figure 1: Changes in the macrophage transcriptome after bacterial activation.
Figure 2: Common and pathogen-specific dendritic-cell responses.
Figure 3: Temporal regulation of dendritic-cell functions.
Figure 4: Global visualization of the data set obtained by kinetic gene-expression analysis of maturing dendritic cells.

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Acknowledgements

We thank N. Pavelka for the figures. This work was supported by grants from the Italian Association against Cancer (AIRC), the 5th EC Programs (DC strategies and TAGAPO) and MIUR (Ministero dell'Istruzione dell'Università e della Ricerca).

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Correspondence to Paola Ricciardi-Castagnoli.

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Ricciardi-Castagnoli, P., Granucci, F. Interpretation of the complexity of innate immune responses by functional genomics. Nat Rev Immunol 2, 881–888 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nri936

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