This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Abu-Issa, R. Articles by Kirby, M. L. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Abu-Issa, R. Articles by Kirby, M. L.

(Circulation Research. 2004;95:335.)
© 2004 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorials

Take Heart in the Age of "Omics"

Radwan Abu-Issa, Margaret L. Kirby

From the Departments of Pediatrics, Cell Biology and Biology, Neonatal-Perinatal Research Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC.

Correspondence to Radwan Abu-Issa, Duke University Medical Center, Bell Bldg, Rm 157, Box 3179 Durham, NC 27710. E-mail r.abuissa@cellbio.duke.edu

Key Words: transcriptome • heart development • heart progenitors and stem cells

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

The advent of access to comprehensive sets of information (ie, genome, transcriptome, proteome, interactome, phenome, and localizome) has brought a new way of global thinking to biological questions, and analysis using these sets is increasingly the choice for many investigations. Although these approaches may appear as a substitute for the more traditional "reductionist" approach that tackles 1 or few genes or gene products at 1 time, they are, in reality, complementary and have the potential to greatly enhance the traditional approach. The "omic," or comprehensive, approach can yield mountains of new information in a relatively short time. Progress in applying the "omic" approach is still in its early exponential phase and does not look like it will plateau any time soon.

An "omic" approach has now been used in the study of heart development. The results provide additional insights into the complexity and number of molecules that orchestrate the development and maintenance of multiple cell types and intricate physiology and pathology of the heart. Transcriptome, or expression profiling of certain cells, groups of cells, or tissues at defined stages and conditions, has been one of the earliest strategies applied to study of the heart. However, using the transcriptome as a tool has several pitfalls that must be acknowledged, including false-negatives and false-positives, frequently ascribed to problems with technical reproducibility. Transcriptome analysis also carries conceptual weaknesses, in that altered expression is not always causally related to a phenotype or process because a change in transcription may not necessarily register as a . . . [Full Text of this Article]

This article has been cited by other articles:

				T. D. Vo and B. O. Palsson Building the power house: recent advances in mitochondrial studies through proteomics and systems biology Am J Physiol Cell Physiol, January 1, 2007; 292(1): C164 - C177. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]