Abstract
Human genome project revealed that human genes are derived from 30, 000∼40, 000 species of genetic loci, which had been estimated as approximately 100, 000. The project also promoted devising novel tools that enable us to analyze biological phenomena comprehensively. Microarray technology is a representative of the novel tools in genomics and engages us to explore genome-wide expression levels of genes simultaneously (transcriptome analysis). Here we show transcriptomes obtained from 10 species of cells infected with human cytomegalovirus, as a model virus, by a synthetic DNA microarray system that we have established recently. Our system provides simultaneous and parallel description on alteration of expression of viral and host genes that are represented within a single area on a slide glass. Moreover, we propose a project entitled ‘comparative virology on cellular responses of infected hosts’ that consists of multiple acquisition and integration of trasncriptomes from a combination of several cells and viruses as a panel on the identical platform. The attempt should extract a novel concept in virology from investigation on differences and similarities among influence of a virus on a variety of different cells and conversely among responses of a species of cells against a variety of different viruses.
