Invasive fungal infections have become recently one of the most serious infectious diseases for human health in our industrialed countries. Emergence of fungal infections results from the increase of immunosuppressed patients and of agressive immunosuppressive therapies used in the hospital. Aspergillus fumigatus is now the first or second source of mortality due to fungal infections in hospitals.
Contamination occurs from fungal spores present in all aerial environment, indoors and outdoors.
These tools for transcriptional analysis will allow the study of the expression of about 5000 genes under different in vitro and in vivo growth conditions, as well as comparisons with other Aspergillus species, without expecting the complete genome sequence. NIH has ranked Aspergillus fumigatus as one of the six organisms for which complete genome sequencing is a priority. This complete genome sequence would be the first obtained in the world for a filamentous fungus. Global analysis of the organisation of this eucaryotic genome will be of great interest for the scientific community, for fundamental or applied research.