Chapter 19 - Ecology and environmental omics

Abstract

Advancements in high-throughput omics technologies enabling rapid profiling of genes, mRNA, proteins, metabolites, metagenomes, etc. have accelerated the research in ecological and environmental omics. Ecological and environmental omics focus on a better understanding of the environmental and genetic factors, chemical toxicity mechanisms/pathways, biomarkers, and modes of action in response to exposure to a single or mixture of chemicals that result in the development of environmental diseases as long-term effects. Environmental omics also aims to investigate the identification of unknown environmental target organisms, environmental monitoring enabling risk assessment, diverse human health outcomes, environmental impacts, ecological functions, and environmental adaptation. Environmental and ecological omics explore acceptable levels and potential impacts of environmental toxicants on environmental target species and ecosystems. Multiomics technologies are also being used in accessing the environment to revise the existing law related to environmental protection. To date, single omics such as transcriptomics (∼43%) are being used frequently compared with multiomics (∼13%) in environmental research, showing the urgent need for multiomics technologies in environmental research. This chapter focuses on the use of various multiomics studies in accessing the environment, exploring the toxicity mechanisms due to exposure to single and mixture of chemicals to the target organisms. This chapter also focuses on the effect of exploring dietary and environmental factors on an organism's genome, environmental monitoring of health risks assessment, etc.