Compound—gene interaction

It is already well known that bioactive food compounds can interact with genes affecting transcription factors, protein expression, and metabolite production. The study of these complex interactions requires the development of advanced analytical approaches combined with bioinformatics. Thus, to carry out these studies transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics approaches are now being employed together with an adequate integration of the information that... 

The following section presents (1) primary DNA damage assays that detect the ability of compounds to interact with DNA and to cause primary DNA damage such as DNA strand-breaks (comet assay) and DNA adducts, (2) indicator assays (UDS and SCE assays) that reveal DNA repair or recombination in response to DNA lesions, and (3) gene mutation assays. 

With the increase in hardware and software, larger systems can be handled with higher accuracy. Much work will continue to be devoted to the study of proteins and polynucleotides (DNA and RNA), and particularly their interactions with more sophisticated methods. Remember proteins and genes are chemical compounds and sophisticated theoretical and chemoinformatics methods should be applied to their study - in addition to the methods developed by bioinfor-maticians. 

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