My interest in functional genomics arose from working with model genetic organisms like bacteriophage T4 and budding yeast as an undergrad and also as a technician in Lee Hartwell's lab in the late s. During my time in his lab, Lee Hartwell was fascinated by the notion of synthetic lethality. He thought this could be applied to cancer because cancer is a disease of genomic alterations.
Synthetic lethality occurs when a cell or organism can tolerate the loss of gene A or gene B but not loss of gene A and gene B together. This usually means that gene A can compensate for gene B function and vice versa. Because cancer cells are riddled with genetic alterations, it is possible that some of these alterations will result in loss of these types of redundancy — in other words gene A goes missing and now gene B's loss cannot be tolerated.
For cancer therapeutic targets, this represents a potentially ideal scenario because normal cells can live without gene B, while cancer cells cannot. This remains a long-term focus of the field of cancer therapeutic and also of my lab. Doxorubicin treatment 0. Cells were infected with sgRNAs and seeded 3 days post-selection for a day culture in triplicate. Cell viability was then measured using alamarBlue reagent. Close Search. Fred Hutch Logo. Another way to look at it is that genetics is more of a static approach, reflecting the fact that we each receive our genetic make-up at conception and that barring somatic alterations we keep it for life.
However, which genes are switched on and off and which proteins are being made are things that differ between cell types and between stages of life, as well as in response to environmental factors. Functional genomics attempts to capture this complexity. In humans, this is often the observed signs and symptoms of a condition. Understanding these dynamics can lead to increased accuracy in diagnosis and better targeted treatments. Functional genomics encompasses studies of gene regulation including epigenetics which genes are switched on or off , transcription how DNA is copied into RNA , and translation how RNA acts as a template for proteins to be assembled.
Because of this, functional genomics is closely linked to transcriptomics, proteomics and epigenomics. Using the large datasets generated by whole genome and whole transcriptome sequencing , functional genomics can explore how expression of a gene changes in the context of disease, and how this is affected by treatment. These considerations include when and where genes are expressed, how variability in expression between different cell types is controlled, and gene regulation — including location and activation or inactivation of promoter sequences in the genome.
A functional genomics approach can also help improve understanding of the functions of specific genes, and their place in cellular processes.
Examining the interaction of genes with gene products RNAs and proteins , and the interactions that these gene products have with one another, can bring insight into how diseases develop, potentially leading to new strategies for disease prevention, interventions and management. Developing people for health and healthcare. Open Tree arrow-right-1 Course overview Search within this course What is functional genomics? Share this page with: twitter facebook linkedin. What is functional genomics?
Share this page with: twitter facebook linkedin. There are several specific functional genomics approaches depending on what we are focused on Figure 2 : DNA level genomics and epigenomics RNA level transcriptomics Protein level proteomics Metabolite level metabolomics Figure 2 Functional genomics is the study of how the genome, transcripts genes , proteins and metabolites work together to to produce a particular phenotype.
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