Genetic Footprinting for Bacterial Functional Genomics

As more complete bacterial genome sequences become available, the need for broad, genomic-scale analytical methods becomes increasingly acute. Moreover, with a sizable portion of microbial genomes encoding proteins of unknown function, tools that suggest gene function or elucidate relationships among genes are crucial for any genomic-scale evaluation. While genomics tools may be central to a basic scientist’s interests in a model organism, they will also be critical to the applied scientist’s examination of a pathogen for targets for therapeutic intervention.