Functional genomics is a field of molecular biology that attempts to make use of the vast wealth of data produced by genomic projects (such as genome sequencing projects) to describe gene (and protein) functions and interactions. Unlike genomics and proteomics, functional genomics focuses on the dynamic aspects such as gene transcription, translation, and protein-protein interactions, as opposed to the static aspects of the genomic information such as DNA sequence or structures.
Functional genomics includes function-related aspects of the genome itself such as mutation and polymorphism (such as SNP) analysis, as well as measurement of molecular activities. The latter comprise a number of "-omics" such as transcriptomics (gene expression), proteomics (protein expression), phosphoproteomics (a subset of proteomics) and metabolomics. Together these measurement modalities quantifies the various biological processes and powers the understanding of gene and protein functions and interactions.
Frequently used techniques
Functional genomics uses mostly high-throughput techniques to characterize the abundance gene products such as mRNA and proteins. Some typical technology platforms are:
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