The omic technologies

Microarrays consist of at least many hundreds and usually many thousands of oligonuceolide sequences or cloned fragment or whole cDNAs printed onto a solid support (slide or membrane). Gene expression is analysed by labelling total mRNA from different treatments, such as pollutant exposed and control organism, with either a red or green fluorescent dye. Equal volumes of the labelled cDNA are mixed and hybridised to the DNA spots on the array slide. If the gene is expressed 

Initial studies of proteome responses to environmental chemicals in soil-dwelling animals or plants are currently under way. Kuperman et al. (2004) have used the approach to identify differentially expressed proteins in earthworms exposed to chemical warfare agents. Toxicological studies also have been undertaken. Vido et al. (2001) analysed yeast cells exposed to an acute cadmium stress 54 proteins were induced and 43 repressed. Finally, Bradley (2000) used two- 

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The challenge will be on the integration of more and more complex data. Thousands of new data will be produced with the omics technologies, and this will provide further inputs to the research. Not only in silico methods, such as QSAR models, but also more complex tools will offer new perspectives if they will be capable to integrate the more complex information. 

In this section, the strategies for metabolic and bioprocess engineering based on the omics technologies are described and their successful examples of applications are summarized. 

Profiling changes in activities of all genes, proteins and/or metabolites using the omic technologies. 

The terminologyused in the "Omics" technologies may be confusing at first glance and therefore requires some explanation. 

The treatment of multivariate data provided by an instrumental system is included in the field of chemometrics, which is a potent tool that allows grouping or classifying samples that present similar characteristics [94-96], As was mentioned in the Introduction, chemometrics plays an important role in the omics technologies in general, and in foodomics in particular, where it has been used to solve different problems within food chemistry. 

Ulrich-Merzenich G, Zeitler H, Jobst D, Panek D, Vetter H, Wagner H. Application of the -Omic- technologies in phytomedicine. Phytomedicine. 2007 14 70-82. 

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