China Normal University, China.
Fudan University, China.
Brief Bioinform. 2021 Sep 2;22(5). doi: 10.1093/bib/bbab024.
Multi-omics allows the systematic understanding of the information flow across different omics layers, while single omics can mainly reflect one aspect of the biological system. The advancement of bulk and single-cell sequencing technologies and related computational methods for multi-omics largely facilitated the development of system biology and precision medicine. Single-cell approaches have the advantage of dissecting cellular dynamics and heterogeneity, whereas traditional bulk technologies are limited to individual/population-level investigation. In this review, we first summarize the technologies for producing bulk and single-cell multi-omics data. Then, we survey the computational approaches for integrative analysis of bulk and single-cell multimodal data, respectively. Moreover, the databases and data storage for multi-omics, as well as the tools for visualizing multimodal data are summarized. We also outline the integration between bulk and single-cell data, and discuss the applications of multi-omics in precision medicine. Finally, we present the challenges and perspectives for multi-omics development.
多组学允许系统地理解不同组学层面之间的信息流，而单组学主要反映生物系统的一个方面。批量和单细胞测序技术的进步以及用于多组学的相关计算方法极大地促进了系统生物学和精准医学的发展。单细胞方法具有剖析细胞动态和异质性的优势，而传统的批量技术仅限于个体/群体水平的研究。在这篇综述中，我们首先总结了产生批量和单细胞多组学数据的技术。然后，我们分别调查了用于整合批量和单细胞多模态数据的计算方法。此外，还总结了多组学的数据库和数据存储以及用于可视化多模态数据的工具。我们还概述了批量和单细胞数据的整合，并讨论了多组学在精准医学中的应用。最后，我们提出了多组学发展的挑战和展望。
