Learning from the genome sequence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv

Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the scourge of humanity, is one of the most suc cessful and scientifically challenging pathogens of all time. To catalyse t he conception of new prophylactic and therapeutic interventions against tub erculosis, and to enhance our understanding of the biology of the tubercle bacillus, the complete genome sequence of the most widely used strain, H37R v, has been determined, Bioinformatic analysis led to the identification of similar to 4000 genes in the 4.41 Mb genome sequence and provided fresh in sight into the biochemistry, physiology, genetics and immunology of this mu ch-feared bacterium. Genomic information is centralised in TubercuList (htt p://wwvv.pasteur.fr/Bio/TubercuList/). (C) 1999 Federation of European Bioc hemical Societies.