Multiomics technologies: role in disease biomarker discoveries and therapeutics

Medical research has been revolutionized after the publication of the full human genome. This was the major landmark that paved the way for understanding the biological functions of different macro and micro molecules. With the advent of different high-throughput technologies, biomedical research was further revolutionized. These technologies constitute genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, etc. Collectively, these high-throughputs are referred to as multi-omics technologies. In the biomedical field, these omics technologies act as efficient and effective tools for disease diagnosis, management, monitoring, treatment and discovery of certain novel disease biomarkers. Genotyping arrays and other transcriptomic studies have helped us to elucidate the gene expression patterns in different biological states, i.e. healthy and diseased states. Further omics technologies such as proteomics and metabolomics have an important role in predicting the role of different biological molecules in an organism. It is because of these high throughput omics technologies that we have been able to fully understand the role of different genes, proteins, metabolites and biological pathways in a diseased condition. To understand a complex biological process, it is important to apply an integrative approach that analyses the multi-omics data in order to highlight the possible interrelationships of the involved biomolecules and their functions. Furthermore, these omics technologies offer an important opportunity to understand the information that underlies disease. In the current review, we will discuss the importance of omics technologies as promising tools to understand the role of different biomolecules in diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and diabetes. Summary Points The major breakthrough in the history of biological/genomic research was the publication of the full human genome in the year 2003. Understanding the importance of different genes, proteins, metabolites in different diseased conditions, genome and proteome analysis, clinical data management, next-generation sequencing, learning algorithms and machine learning is very essential. Omics represents the collection of different technologies that help us to investigate the role and action of different cellular molecules. Omics technologies include genomics (genes), transcriptomics (messenger RNA), proteomics (proteins) and metabolomics (metabolites). Omics technologies have been very fruitful in providing the deep insights regarding different genes, proteins and biological pathways that play a vital role in different types of cancers, cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and diabetes, etc. These technologies have also paved the way for the identification of some important and novel disease biomarkers that have been found to be very efficient for diagnosis, monitoring and management of different diseases.

Automated summary

The publication of the full human genome has revolutionized medical research and paved the way for the use of multi-omics technologies in diagnosing, managing, and discovering novel disease biomarkers.