Wounded King

What is going to be the next big Omics?

I reckon Epigenomics time has come.

sakrilege

Just a suggestion, providing definitions for those of us who have opinions to express but are ignorant of the terminology.

johngalt

Epitomics. Definitely Epitomics.

Wounded King

I suppose a little guide might be useful.


Proteomics: The characterisation of all the expressed proteins of a cell/tissue/organism.

Epigenomics: The characterisation of all the epigenetic factors (DNA methylation, histone methylation, histone acetylation etc.) affecting gene expression in a cell/tissue/organism.

Metabolomics: The characterisation of all small molecular weight metabolites in a cell/tissue/organism.

Transcriptomics: The characterisation of all the transcribed RNAs in a cell/tissue/organism.

Epitomics: An immmunologically related area of proteomics. The characterisation of all the epitopes of the proteome of a cell/tissue/organism.

Kinomics: Characterisation of the kinetic interactions of the proteome and genome of a cell/tissue/organism.

ORFeomics: Characterisation of all open reading frames, regardless of whether they produce transcripts, of a cell/tissue/organism. The ORFeome is a subset of the genome and a superset of the proteome.

ps418

My vote's for transcriptomics, because it already seems to be the next 'big thing.' And its all being made possible by what in my opinion is one of the coolest technologies ever -- DNA microarrays, or 'gene chips.' With gene chips you can rapidly characterize the expression of literally thousands of genes at once.

For instance, in the cancer journals, I'm reading about how DNA microarrays are being used to discover what transcription changes initiate cancer and are associated with cancer progression, in genetics journals microarrays are being used to discover which genes are expressed in which cell types and how differential expression of known genes affects observed phenotypes, i.e. functional genomics. Another transcriptomics strategy I've read about is using microarrays to characterize transcription changes in behavioral or complex disease mutants, which leads to the rapid identification of individual genes associated with behaviors or complex disease.

Patrick

ps418

Is there such a thing as splice-omics? If I may veer slightly off-topic for a minute , its dawning on me that the phenomenon of alternative splicing will make everyone's job alot more complicated. For instance, about 40-60% of human genes may exist in more than one splice form (Modrek and Lee, 2002), and it is quite possible (although not known) that some genes with lots of exons can be expressed in thousands of different splice forms with different functional properties. So, while say humans may have a 'mere' 30k genes or so, we could (hypothetically) still have millions of distinct proteins (keeping in mind that eveh a single SNP can dramatically affect the functional properties of a resultant protein).

Patrick


Modrek and Lee, 2002. A genomic view of alternative splicing. Nature Genetics 30, 13 - 19.

Wounded King

Darn, I should have put RNomics in, the characterisation of all the non coding mRNAs in a cell/tissue/organism. The RNome is really a subset of the transcriptome but it is a very fertile field in and of itself.

theyeti

You left out lipidomics.

I voted for proteomics because with MS/MS sequencing, it has the best potiential for taking off in the near future. Some of the others will have to wait for the requisite technology, and it's unlikely that the other "-omes" are as crucial for phenotype as the proteome is. Transcriptomics has a lot of potential, but there isn't always a clear relationship between the level of transcription and the level of translation, so both transcriptomics and proteomics are necessary. Transcriptomics does have those neat microarrays, but they're starting to develop them for proteomics too, though there are some obvious barriers, like trying to find molecules that bind proteins both tightly and specifically. For now though, you can stick a big wad of cellular supernatant through an anion exchange column, hook up the end to a tandem mass spectrometer, and identify thousands of proteins. That's some powerful stuff. But then again maybe I'm biased because my school's been picked as one of several NIH proteomics centers, and one of my committe members will be running it.

theyeti