Toxicogenomics

As ‘genetics’ pertains to the study of genes and their characteristics, so ‘genomics’ refers to the study of the entire genetic complement (the genome) of organisms and their constituent cells. More importantly, the term genomics encompasses the experimental analysis of the expression patterns of the genes of an organism, with the aim of an improved understanding of how important biological processes are regulated. This has led to the concept of ‘gene profiling’ or ‘transcript profiling’, which essentially is the quantitative analysis of many different gene transcripts simultaneously. The ability to perform this type of analysis, together with the availability of sequence information from many thousands of genes from a number of organisms (and often the gene clones themselves), offers an enormous potential benefit to many areas of investigative biology.

Not least is the area of toxicology, where the term ‘toxicogenomics’ is now becoming widely used. Of the number of important potential benefits offered by the application of genomics to toxicology, perhaps the most significant are: (i) the construction of a large database of gene expression information linked to toxic endpoints, and (ii) a more detailed understanding of the molecular mechanisms of compound toxicity. Strategic application of this information should result in the development of more rapid, mechanism-based screens for toxicity.

Biomarkers in toxicology

The development and use of biomarkers in toxicology is becoming widespread, specifically in the areas of exposure monitoring, and the determination of response and susceptibility to toxins (see [1] for review).