-omics, -ome, -omes

(Greek: said to be a stem for "all, every, whole", or "complete"; that is, a field of study in biology that refers to the whole set of omics including their -omics and -ome subfields in order to understand life as a holistic existence and organic beings as a whole)

Bioinformatists and molecular biologists are thought to be among the first scientists to start to apply the -ome suffix in several scientific areas.

Bioinformatics is an information science that analyzes life processes using computational tools for solving biological problems and to give direction or an overview in biology.

Ome and omics are convenient ways to describe a holistic way of looking at complex systems. In the mid 1990's bioinformatists started realizing the convenience of -omics and used terms for many fields; such as, metabolome, textome, interactome, bacteriome, eukaryome, functome, patentome, neurome and so on.

Omics was coined by scientists to present the realization of the importance of information processing in biology that was proposed by many biologists and as such, it was made possible by the development of personal computers and personal computer operating systems; such as, Windows, Linux, and Apple.

metagenome, metagenomes
1. Genetic material found and recovered directly from environmental samples.
2. The genetic material is assumed to contain DNA from multiple organisms and therefore multiple genomes.
metagenomics; Environmental Genomics, Ecogenomics, Community Genomics
1. The study of the collective genomes of microorganisms (as opposed to clonal cultures).
2. The study of genomes recovered from environmental samples as opposed to getting them from clonal cultures.

The technique is to clone DNA in large fragments directly from the microorganism's environment; (soil or oceans) into a culturable host and conduct a sequence-based and functional genomic analysis on it.

The hope of this new strategy is isolate new chemical signals, new secondary metabolites that might have utility to humans, and the reconstruction of an entire genome of an uncultured organism.

This relatively new field of genetic research allows the genomic study of organisms that are not easily cultured in a laboratory.

In 1998, Jo Handelsman, a plant pathologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and four colleagues coined the term metagenomics, literally, "beyond genomics".

Metagenomics has also been described as "the comprehensive study of nucleotide sequence, structure, regulation, and function".

Scientists can study the smallest component of an environmental system by extracting DNA from organisms in the system and inserting it into a model organism. The model organism then expresses this DNA where it can be studied using standard laboratory techniques.

metallome
1. Free metal ions in cellular compartments.
2. The complete complement of metals and metal moieties in a biological cell, tissue, or system.
metallomics
The study of metals and metal species, and their interactions, transformations, and functions in biological systems.

Some scientific researchers believe that there is a need to know more and more about the original form of metal elements and their interactions with other chemical or biochemical entities.

For example, arsenic is regarded as toxic, but this chemical is primarily associated with inorganic forms; such as, arsenite while arsenobetaine is an organic chemical form of arsenic, which exists normally in seafood and is considered to be non-toxic.

This is why it is necessary to study all of the elements, regardless of metals, nonmetals, or metalloids, in biological systems to determine their influences on animals and humans.

metalloproteomics
Research regarding the distributions and compositions of all metalloproteins in proteome, and the characterization of their structures and functions, which may be regarded as the overlap of metallomics and proteomics.
nanomics
Studies of biological effects of all kinds of nanomaterials.
neurome
The study of the brain's structures, circuits, and cells which are directed toward the discovery and development of enhancements of brain functions and treatments of brain-based diseases.
pharmacogenome
Research regarding the underlying genetic differences in drug responses beyond focusing on DNA sequence variation.

Most of the focus is on specific DNA sequences, although genome-wide technologies are often used in identifying those sequences.

pharmacogenomics
The whole genome application of pharmacogenetics, which examines the single gene interactions with drugs.

It is generally regarded as the study or clinical testing of genetic variations that give rise to differing responses to drugs.

phenome
The set of all phenotypes expressed by a cell, tissue, organ, organism, or species.

A phenotype is any observable characteristic or trait of an organism; such as, its morphology, development, biochemical or physiological properties, behavior, and products of behavior (for example, a bird's nest).

phenomics
The study of phenomes which is the physical and biochemical traits of organisms as they change in response to genetic mutation and environmental influences.

It is used in functional genomics (field of molecular biology), pharmaceutical research (interdisciplinary areas of study involved with the design, action, delivery, disposition, and use of drugs), and metabolic engineering ( practice of optimizing genetic and regulatory processes within cells to increase the cells' production of a certain substance).

phosphoproteomics
The study of all proteins bearing regulatory phosphate groups.
physiome
The physiological dynamics of a normal intact organism which is based on information and structure (genome, proteome, and morphome).
physiomics
A systematic study of physiome (the physiological dynamics of a normal intact organism and is built upon information and structure [genome, proteome, and morphome]) in biology.

Physiomics employs bioinformatics to construct networks of physiological features that are associated with genes, proteins and their networks.

proteome (s) (noun), proteomes (pl)
The entire set of proteins expressed by a genome, cell, tissue, or organism.

It is the set of expressed proteins in a given type of cells or an organism at a given time under specifically defined conditions.

The proteome is the totality of proteins (expressed genes) in an organism, tissue type or cell, and proteomics is now well-established as a term for studying the proteome.