- published: 20 Apr 2016
- views: 689
The English-language neologism omics informally refers to a field of study in biology ending in -omics, such as genomics, proteomics or metabolomics. The related suffix -ome is used to address the objects of study of such fields, such as the genome, proteome or metabolome respectively.
Functional genomics aims at identifying the functions of as many genes as possible of a given organism. It combines different -omics techniques such as transcriptomics and proteomics with saturated mutant collections.
The suffix -ome as used in molecular biology refers to a totality of some sort; it is an example of a "neo-suffix" formed by abstraction from various Greek terms in -ωμα, a sequence that does not form an identifiable suffix in Greek.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) distinguishes three different fields of application for the -ome suffix:
The -ome suffix originated as a variant of -oma, and became productive in the last quarter of the 19th century. It was originally found in terms like sclerome or rhizome. All of these are terms derived from Greek words in -ωμα, a sequence that is not a single suffix, but analyzable as -ω-μα, the -ω- belonging to the word stem, usually a verb, and the -μα being a genuine Greek suffix forming abstract nouns.
You were lying naked in my arms
We were making memories
You were beating breathing into my lungs
Like a nuclear looped-up drum
We burned our bridges
We loved under atomic skies
Rejoiced in the hopeless
We loved under atomic skies
We were looking for something to believe
We were looking for something to understand
Our twisted senses of loyalty
Was getting so out of hand
We burned our bridges
We loved under atomic skies
Rejoiced in the hopeless
We loved under atomic skies
Rejoiced in the hopeless