Genomics

What is genomics?

Genomics is the omics study of genes of individual organisms, populations, and species.

It is also a paradigm of performing biological science that deviates from investigating single genes, their functions, and roles.

The main reason of an independent biological discipline is that it deals with very large sets of genetic information to automatically analyze information using interaction and network concepts. Genomics inevitably employs high performance computing and bioinformatics technologies.

Bacteriophage Genomics

Bacteriophages have played and continue to play a key role in bacterial genetics and molecular biology. Historically, they were used to define gene structure and gene regulation. Also the first genome to be sequenced was a bacteriophage. However, bacteriophage research did not lead the genomics revolution, which is clearly dominated by bacterial genomics. Only very recently has the study of bacteriophage genomes become prominent, thereby enabling researchers to understand the mechanisms underlying phage evolution. Bacteriophage genome sequences can be obtained through direct sequencing of isolated bacteriophages, but can also be derived as part of microbial genomes. Analysis of bacterial genomes has shown that a substantial amount of microbial DNA consists of prophage sequences and prophage-like elements. A detailed database mining of these sequences offers insights into the role of prophages in shaping the bacterial genome.⁹

Cyanobacteria Genomics

At present there are 24 cyanobacteria for which a total genome sequence is available. 15 of these cyanobacteria come from the marine environment. These are six Prochlorococcus'Synechococcusstrains, Trichodesmium erythraeum IMS101 and Crocosphaera watsonii Several studies have demonstrated how these sequences could be used very successfully to infer important ecological and physiological characteristics of marine cyanobacteria. However, there are many more genome projects currently in progress, amongst those there are further Prochlorococcus and marine Synechococcus isolates, Acaryochloris and Prochloron, the N₂-fixing filamentous cyanobacteria Nodularia spumigena, Lyngbya aestuarii and Lyngbya majuscula, as well as bacteriophages infecting marine cyanobaceria. Thus, the growing body of genome information can also be tapped in a more general way to address global problems by applying a comparative approach. Some new and exciting examples of progress in this field are the identification of genes for regulatory RNAs, insights into the evolutionary origin of photosynthesis, or estimation of the contribution of horizontal gene transfer to the genomes that have been analyzed.^[10

Genome sequencing and genomics

See also

• Pangenomics and Pangenome
• Personal Genome Project
• Omics
• Proteomics
• Interactomics
• Functional genomics
• Computational genomics
• Nitrogenomics
• Pathogenomics

References

1. ^ Min Jou W, Haegeman G, Ysebaert M, Fiers W., Nucleotide sequence of the gene coding for the bacteriophage MS2 coat protein, Nature. 1972 May 12;237(5350):82-8
2. ^ Fiers W et al., Complete nucleotide-sequence of bacteriophage MS2-RNA - primary and secondary structure of replicase gene, Nature, 260, 500-507, 1976
3. ^ Sanger F, Air GM, Barrell BG, Brown NL, Coulson AR, Fiddes CA, Hutchison CA, Slocombe PM, Smith M., Nucleotide sequence of bacteriophage phi X174 DNA, Nature. 1977 Feb 24;265(5596):687-95
4. ^ The Viral Genomes Resource, NCBI Friday, 14 September, 2007
5. ^ Genome Project Statistic, NCBI Friday, 14 September, 2007
6. ^ BBC article Human gene number slashed from Wednesday, 20 October, 2004
7. ^ CBSE News, Thursday October 16, 2003
8. ^ NHGRI, pressrelease of the publishing of the dog genome
9. ^ Mc Grath S and van Sinderen D (editors). (2007). Bacteriophage: Genetics and Molecular Biology, 1st ed., Caister Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-904455-14-1 . 
10. ^ Herrero A and Flores E (editor). (2008). The Cyanobacteria: Molecular Biology, Genomics and Evolution, 1st ed., Caister Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-904455-15-8 .

Web links
Wikipedia Genomics link
Omics.org
Totalomics.com

What is Genomics? from News-Medical.net