ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the use of genomics and proteomics to identify and develop biomarkers in toxicology, focusing in particular on genomics. Toxicogenomics and toxicoproteomics have enormous potential as new biomarker tools, both by providing a means to quantitatively examine global changes in gene and protein expression, and by their simultaneous ability to identify and validate new individual candidates as biomarkers for each of the specific steps in the toxicology paradigm. Proteomics is ultimately of even greater interest than genomics in toxicology, given that we are most interested in toxicant-induced changes in protein expression and function, which result in sustained alterations in the phenotype of a cell and which ultimately contribute to pathophysiological consequences. Advances in genomics and proteomics technologies have led to these approaches being increasingly used in toxicology, both for mechanistically based studies and for identifying and characterizing candidate biomarkers.
