- Course overview
- Search within this course
- Functional genomic resources at EMBL-EBI
- Summary
- Quiz: test your knowledge
- Your feedback
- Learn more
- References
All materials are free cultural works licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, except where further licensing details are provided.
What is functional genomics?
The aim of functional genomics studies is to understand the complex relationship between genotype and phenotype on a global (genome-wide) scale. Studies investigate a range of processes such as transcription, translation and epigenetic regulation, in an attempt to answer relevant biological questions such as:
- When and where are genes expressed?
- How do gene expression levels differ in various cell types and states?
- What are the functional roles of different genes and in what cellular processes do they participate?
- How are genes regulated? Where are the active gene promoters in a particular cell type?
- How do genes and gene products interact?
- How does gene expression change in various diseases or following a treatment?
Experiments
Functional genomic experiments (Figure 1) typically utilise large-scale, high-throughput assays to measure and track many genes or proteins in parallel under different experimental or environmental conditions (e.g. with samples from patients and healthy individuals). This “genome-wide” approach allows the function of different parts of the genome to be discovered by combining information from genes, transcripts and proteins.
