Source: CropBiotech Update

The 'omics' sciences applied in biotechnology are genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics.

Genomics is a new science that deals with the discovery and noting of all the sequences in the entire genome of a particular organism. In crop agriculture, the main purpose of the application of genomics is to gain a better understanding of the whole genome of plants to be able to identify important genes that may be targeted to produce more nutritious and safe food.

On the other hand, the goal of proteomics is to understand how the structure and function of proteins allow them to do what they do, what they interact with, and how they contribute to life processes. Proteomics can be applied to map protein modification to determine the difference between a wild type and a genetically modified organism (GMO). It is also used to study protein-protein interactions involved in plant defense reactions.

Metabolomics is one of the newest 'omics' sciences, and is aimed at determining a sample's profile of compounds at a specified time under specific environmental condition. It is used to determine the differences between the levels of thousands of molecules between healthy and diseased plants. The technology can also be used to determine the nutritional difference between traditional and genetically modified (GM) crops, and in identifying plant defense metabolites.

Learn more about the 'omics' sciences by downloading the latest Pocket Knowledge (K) from the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Application (ISAAA) Global Knowledge Center for Crop Biotechnology at http://www.isaaa.org/kc/bin/pocketk/index.htm.