Inadera Hidekuni, Uchida Mitsuo, Shimomura Akiko
Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toyama, 2630 Sugitani, Toyama 930-0194, Japan.
Nihon Eiseigaku Zasshi. 2007 Jan;62(1):18-31. doi: 10.1265/jjh.62.18.
Toxicology research can be applied to evaluate potential human health risks resulting from exposure to chemicals and other factors in the environment. The tremendous advances that have been made in high-throughput "omics" technologies (e.g., genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics) are providing good tools for toxicological research. Toxicogenomics is the study of changes in gene expression, protein and metabolite profiles, and combines the tools of traditional toxicology with those of genomics and bioinformatics. In particular, identification of changes in gene expression using DNA microarrays is an important method for understanding toxicological processes and obtaining an informative biomarker. Although these technologies have emerged as a powerful tool for clarifying hazard mechanisms, there are some concerns for the application of these technologies to toxicological research. This review summarizes the impact of "omics" technologies in toxicological study, followed by a brief discussion of future research.
毒理学研究可用于评估因接触环境中的化学物质及其他因素而导致的潜在人类健康风险。高通量“组学”技术（如基因组学、转录组学、蛋白质组学和代谢组学）取得的巨大进展为毒理学研究提供了良好的工具。毒理基因组学研究基因表达、蛋白质和代谢物谱的变化，并将传统毒理学工具与基因组学和生物信息学工具相结合。特别是，使用DNA微阵列鉴定基因表达的变化是理解毒理学过程和获得信息丰富的生物标志物的重要方法。尽管这些技术已成为阐明危害机制的有力工具，但在将这些技术应用于毒理学研究方面仍存在一些担忧。本综述总结了“组学”技术在毒理学研究中的影响，随后简要讨论了未来的研究。
