Functional genomics studies of the human pathogen Neisseria meningitidis.

Neisseria meningitidis is a strictly human pathogen and is one of the major causes of septicemia and meningitis worldwide. Functional genomics approaches have been extensively applied to study how N. meningitidis adapts to grow and survive in different human niches encountered during the infection. DNA microarrays performed in in vitro and ex vivo conditions have revealed changes in the transcriptome profiles of N. meningitidis upon interaction with human cells and after incubation in human serum and blood. Mutagenesis studies allowed detecting mutants in genes crucial for N. meningitidis colonization and systemic infection. The analysis of N. meningitidis genomes has been also successful in the identification of vaccine candidates used to develop an effective protein-based vaccine. The application of all these approaches revealed the potential to identify new virulence factors and vaccine candidates and to assign functions to previously uncharacterized genes providing new insights in the biology and pathogenesis of N. meningitidis.