TY - JOUR T1 - Transcriptome: from laboratory to clinic room JF - Archives of disease in childhood - Education & practice edition JO - Arch Dis Child Educ Pract Ed SP - 163 LP - 165 DO - 10.1136/archdischild-2017-313890 VL - 104 IS - 3 AU - Rebecca Amy Dalrymple AU - Shelagh Joss Y1 - 2019/06/01 UR - http://ep.bmj.com/content/104/3/163.abstract N2 - ‘The “omics” refer to the collective technologies used to characterise and quantify pools of biological molecules and to explore their roles, relationships and actions in the cells of a living creature’.1 Transcriptomics is the study of the abundance of RNA transcripts in a cell or tissue, at a given time. This information adds to our understanding of gene structure, function and biological processes in different tissues and organisms.Other notable ‘omics’:Genomics is the study of an organism’s whole genome.Proteomics is the study of the composition, structure, function and interaction of proteins present within a particular cell or tissue.1 Metabolomics is the study of molecules involved in cellular metabolism. There are over 19 000 metabolites and low molecular weight compounds.1 The transcriptome is the total complement of RNA transcripts in a cell.2 RNA is a single-stranded, linear polymer of nucleotides with a ribose group, transcribed (copied) from a DNA template by complementary base pairing.There are many different types of RNA, and the previous concept that ‘DNA makes RNA makes protein’ is now scorned for being too simplistic. Messenger RNA (mRNA) forms the template for protein translation. However, to make fully functioning protein, you also need a range of non-protein coding RNAs. These regulate gene expression depending on the tissue type and a range of external factors. The importance of non-protein coding RNA is recognised increasingly3 (see table 1 for types of RNA and … ER -