Research
Differential gene expression mediated by 15-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid in LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells
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* Corresponding author: David W Wright David.Wright@vanderbilt.edu
Malaria Journal 2009, 8:195 doi:10.1186/1475-2875-8-195
Please help me out...
Bart Knols
(2009-08-12 09:21) MalariaWorld 
Dear authors,
I have not the slightest hesitation to assume that the work you reported in this article
is of high quality; it would not have been published in Malaria J if this wasn't the
case.
But for me and those thousands of other readers of the journal, can you please explain
to me what this is all about? I have been in the field of malaria for 20 years (on
the vector side), sit on the editorial board of this and several other journals, but
had a really really hard time to understand the crux of your story.
Would it not be good for Malaria J to co-publish a few hundred words (in a box) in
a language that we all speak and understand alongside every article? Explain in simple
terms to those not directly engaged at this level what this study was all about, what
was found, and how it contributes to our knowledge and ultimately the goal of controlling
if not eliminating malaria.
Competing interests
None declared.
Response
David Wright (2009-10-05 12:51) Vanderbilt University
The control or eventual elimination of malaria is not possible without a thorough understanding of the disease as an integrated process. While biological studies traditionally examine a subset of molecular indicators, the dynamic nature of malaria infection (i.e., vector, parasite, and host interactions) lends itself to technologies utilized by the field of systems biology: transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. The transcriptional approach presented here is reductionist by nature, systematically examining the global response to constituent components of hemozoin (the detoxification product generated in response to heme liberated during hemoglobin catabolism) in order to better understand the individual players responsible for macrophage immunomodulation. The studies focus on a specific component of hemozoin, 15-HETE, mapping the macrophage response to this biologically active lipid peroxidation product. It is our hope that this global analysis, with a focus on 15-HETE, will aid in further advancing the malaria knowledge-base with regard to hemozoin's biological activity.
Competing interests
None declared
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