ABSTRACT
The term genomics, coined by Tom Roderick, is not conclusive but usually deals with whole genome analysis of organisms. Genomics can be classied into functional and structural genomics. While structural genomics deals with the arrangement of nucleotides in a genome, functional genomics entails their role in the phenotypes, that is, the expression of the genes. Other elds under the regimen of genomics are cognitive genomics, epigenomics, metagenomics, and comparative genomics based on the subject and direction of the study. Transcriptomics is the study of the set of genes expressed in a particular cell, tissue, or organ at a particular stage or time at RNA level. Sometimes it is also included in the area of genomics. It is directly related to the proteome and metabolome, as it denes the array of proteins and metabolites present in a cell at a given time. Proteomics studies the set of proteins expressed/present at a given time in the cell. Proteins are among the most dynamic biomolecules of the cell and changes in the array of proteins result directly in the function and phenotype of the cell at a particular point. Often described as the next step to genomics, proteomics seems to be more complicated as there are fewer proteins than genes. The metabolome is the collection of all the low-molecular-weight compounds other than primary metabolites present in an organism, while their comprehensive analysis is termed as metabolomics (Schauer and Fernie, 2006). Metabolomics is the progression of the omics approaches from DNA, RNA and proteins to molecular prints that cellular processes leave behind.
