Omics and Molecular Technologies

Table of Content

1. What are omics technologies?

2. How do omics technologies work? 

3. Branches of Omics Technologies

4. Applications of Omics Technologies

5. Take-Home Points

6. FAQ on Omics and Molecular Technologies

Introduction

Cancer and many severe diseases can be treated with the help of omics technologies, but how? Omic technology detects genes present in a sample and can be used to find out where exactly the disease processes are starting and what genes are getting affected, hence can be used for treatment and drug development. 

What are omics technologies?

Omics technologies are used for the detection of genes, DNA, and the structure of different biomolecules like proteins, carbohydrates and different metabolites. If one has to identify whether or not this is part of omics, one should look for the prefix “-omics” in that term. Proteomics and genomics are some of the familiar terms which are hot topics nowadays, which are also part of “omics”. Advancements in cancer research can be credited to different technologies of omics. In the case of cancer, it led scientists to know which genes are getting changed, which processes are getting affected and what is its implication on cancer progression. Which in turn leads to the development of drugs to cure those processes to treat cancer. This is just one example, there are many more, omics technologies have also a role in environmental chemistry, dealing with the intoxication of food chains. Omics in biotechnology has also a wide variety of applications like developing a genetically engineered plant or drug discovery, recombinant therapies etc. 

How do omics technologies work? 

All the characteristics we have like height, eye colour, and everything the organism has is encoded by DNA. It is like a blueprint for our body. Genes are part of DNA that is responsible for a specific thing like a gene encoding for your height or a protein essential for cellular growth. If any change happens at the gene level, it is called a mutation. There are many types of mutation, some are irrelevant for our body as it doesn't affect any metabolic process of our body, Some could lead to diseases which are called genetically transmitted diseases, these mutations or simply changes in genes, interfere with normal metabolic processes. These omics technologies analyse the atomic and molecular structure of genes. An obvious question could be how does a gene translate to a metabolite? The whole concept of how genes are translated to protein and metabolite is called the "Central dogma of biology". The central dogma of biology states that genetic information flows only in one direction, from DNA to RNA, to protein. RNA for our purposes we assume is an intermediate or messenger which tells our cell what our DNA is trying to code, although it is quite more complex. RNA is what gets translated into protein. The omics technologies detect DNA mutations and ultimately the protein. This property is used for curing diseases since we can alter genes. CRISPR is one of those techniques which is getting popular nowadays. 

Branches of Omics Technologies

We will mostly limit this discussion to omics branches which mainly deal with genetic(DNA) level and protein level

1. Genomics: Studies about the whole genetic makeup of an organism. It is used to map ancestral relations that we have with our evolutionary ancestors.

2. Structural genomics: studies the 3D structure of protein that is coded by a gene.

3. Functional genomics: It finds out what a gene does at different levels, for example at the transcript level(RNA ) or at the translation level (the process of making RNA into protein). It also studies gene regulation like how cells of hands know that they have to become a hand. All the cells are derived from one single zygote. So how this happens is taken care of by this branch.

4. Nutrigenomics: This is one of the most interesting branches, it deals with nutrient interactions at the molecular level with the genome. This is ultimately leading to the development of personalized nutrition for a person based on his/her genome.

5. Proteomics: Proteomics deals with the function and structure of the whole protein an organism has. This is quite more complex than genomics since genes of the organisms remain constant throughout the body, every cell has the same genes but expresses different proteins and if you are thinking this is what gene regulation means which is studied by functional genomics. 

There are far more interesting branches relating to “omics”, these are some of the important ones.

Applications of Omics Technologies

1. Protein biomarkers: Apart from signs and symptoms of a disease, a  medical professional also sometimes need serum enzyme tests. “Serum” is just a fancy term for blood. These enzymes are related to specific disease processes like when heart cells die in a heart attack the enzymes present in the cell leak out of the cell and that could be detected by a Serum enzymes test. These enzymes are discovered using technologies which are part of proteomics.

2. Detect Cancer invasion: Omics technologies are also used in finding whether a tumour is spread to a distant location from its site of origin.

3. Neurodegenerative diseases: Alzheimer's disease is one the most common diseases of old age which happens because of nerve damage and deposition of proteins in the brain. These proteins are discovered because of these omics technologies and this is just one example. There are many like that for example in kidney amyloid which also happens when protein deposits in the kidney, the structure and relation to cells are found by these technologies.

4. Drug design: Rationale drug design is something that has given a boost to medical sciences. In this process of drug designing, scientists find the structure of the receptor which they are targeting and then design the drug based on that structure. This all became possible because of the development of “omics technologies.

5. Genetic engineering: Bt cotton is a variety of cotton, genetically modified so that it could resist damage from pests. Many vegetables are genetically engineered like flavr savr tomatoes genetically engineered to increase shelf life.

6. DNA fingerprinting: DNA fingerprinting is used to mainly solve medical disputes and to find out ancestral relationships. Two persons who are closely related tend to have almost the same results on DNA fingerprinting. This can be used, when one claims to be a relative of someone during a court case. Also places where criminal events took place, when a hair, or cigarette is left by criminal then DNA fingerprinting is used for confirming suspect.

7. 3D Printing: 3D bio printing is on advancement nowadays, scientists are using the omic technologies to print cartilage, bones and blood vessels etc. These are used in grafting wherever necessary. 

8. Polymerase Chain Reaction: PCR amplifies a segment of genetic material could be DNA or RNA. In Covid-19 rt-PCR has been extensively used for screening patients.

9.  Recombinant technology: Dolly the sheep, first genetically cloned animal. This all became possible because of genetic engineering. Genetic clonning is used in production of vaccines or used by farmers to improve overall quality of their herds by providing more copies of the best animals in the herd.

10. ELISA: Enzyme-linked immunoassay is used for the detection of antibodies in our body, it works on the principle of antigen-antibody reactions. This has been extensively used for the diagnosis of AIDS patients.

11. Monoclonal antibodies: Monoclonal antibodies are used as drugs. These are antibodies which are produced by cloning from the same cell line. These antibodies as drug are targeted therapy for a disease, especially an autoimmune disease. These are used in the treatment of asthma, cancer and many autoimmune diseases.

12. Adjuvant therapy for cancer: Surgery is the first-line treatment of cancer. Before surgery cancer mass is reduced so that surgical procedures can be performed. This is called adjuvant therapy. Adjuvant therapy drugs are mostly monoclonal antibodies.

Take-Home Points

Omic technologies are advancing with time. These technologies include genomics, proteomics, pharmacogenomics and nutritional genomics. Omics technologies are used for developing targeted therapy in medical sciences. Genetically engineered plants and vegetables have been created using omics technologies. Cancer therapies also have a role in these technologies. Rt-PCR and ELISA helped in revolutionizing medical science, we are able to detect COVID and AIDS-like infections in a short span of time. There is much more to come with advancement in Omics technologies. They are also been finding their use in green chemistry.

References

Methodologies and applied strategies in the rational drug design

Real-Time Reverse Transcription