North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA.
Environ Toxicol Chem. 2011 Feb;30(2):283-9. doi: 10.1002/etc.403.
Transcriptomics and population genomics are two complementary genomic approaches that can be used to gain insight into pollutant effects in natural populations. Transcriptomics identify altered gene expression pathways, and population genomics approaches more directly target the causative genomic polymorphisms. Neither approach is restricted to a predetermined set of genes or loci. Instead, both approaches allow a broad overview of genomic processes. Transcriptomics and population genomic approaches have been used to explore genomic responses in populations of fish from polluted environments and have identified sets of candidate genes and loci that appear biologically important in response to pollution. Often differences in gene expression or loci between polluted and reference populations are not conserved among polluted populations, suggesting a biological complexity that we do not yet fully understand. As genomic approaches become less expensive with the advent of new sequencing and genotyping technologies, they will be more widely used in complementary studies. However, although these genomic approaches are immensely powerful for identifying candidate genes and loci, the challenge of determining biological mechanisms that link genotypes and phenotypes remains.
转录组学和群体基因组学是两种互补的基因组方法，可用于深入了解自然种群中的污染物效应。转录组学可以识别改变的基因表达途径，而群体基因组学方法则更直接地针对引起这些变化的基因组多态性。这两种方法都不受预定的基因或基因座的限制。相反，这两种方法都可以全面了解基因组的过程。转录组学和群体基因组学方法已被用于研究受污染环境中鱼类种群的基因组反应，并确定了一系列候选基因和基因座，这些基因和基因座在应对污染时似乎具有重要的生物学意义。通常，受污染和参照种群之间的基因表达或基因座差异在受污染种群之间并不保守，这表明存在我们尚未完全理解的生物学复杂性。随着新测序和基因分型技术的出现，基因组方法的成本越来越低，它们将在更多的互补研究中得到更广泛的应用。然而，尽管这些基因组方法在识别候选基因和基因座方面非常强大，但确定将基因型和表型联系起来的生物学机制仍然是一个挑战。
