The OMICS acronym crawled into the hive mind of the life science community as the Marvel universe onto the movie screens: slowly but successfully. Genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, methylomics or surfaceomics occupy a growing field of research in systems biology lately. It will be an even more significant strand in the future with practical ramifications, such as transcriptomic tests for disease risks. Thus, it is recommended to get familiar with the OMICS universe. Here’s a glimpse of it.

Systems biology and the messenger game

When I was in fourth grade, a fun game sometimes referred to as the ‘broken telephone game’ lighted up my school trips. We usually made long hiking trips in nature, which for me, an impersonator of Sheldon Cooper, seemed rather dull and an unnatural place of stay. We formed a line, and the one at the end of the row whispered a message in the ear of the closest individual. The words were passed down to the other end of the line, with the last person saying it out loud. It was amusing to see how the message was twisted and turned due to different receptors, environmental factors and how it ended up as an end-product of the interplay between many ears, brains, noise, etc. That’s how Katie’s got a big head could end up being the navy caught a pig dead.

In a nutshell and in plain language, this is the process that happens when information from our DNA, the ultimate source, is passed down to different molecules in our cells, i.e., during the expression of the genes – to RNAs, proteins, enzymes, metabolites, etc. amid environmental factors and noise. Systems biology analyses the interrelations between the networks of all these processes at the cellular level applying a holistic approach, while the various layers are examined at unprecedented spatial or temporal resolution, depth, and thoroughness with the help of the OMICS universe: genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, methylomics, surfaceomics, etc.

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