Cancer genomics

 Cancer genomics – the comparison of sequences from normal and tumour cells from single patients – has become a major activity.

Abnormal splicing variants are also thought to contribute to the development of cancer, and splicing factor genes are frequently mutated in different types of cancer.

synteny blocks

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In classical genetics, synteny describes the physical co-localization of genetic loci on the same chromosome within an individual or species. Today, however, biologists usually refer to synteny as the conservation of blocks of order within two sets of chromosomes that are being compared with each other.

Metagenomics is the study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental samples. The broad field may also be referred to as environmental genomics, ecogenomics or community genomics. While traditional microbiology and microbial genome sequencing and genomics rely upon cultivated clonalcultures, early environmental gene sequencing cloned specific genes (often the 16S rRNA gene) to produce a profile of diversity in a natural sample. Such work revealed that the vast majority of microbial biodiversity had been missed by cultivation-based methods.^[1] Recent studies use either "shotgun" or PCR directed sequencing to get largely unbiased samples of all genes from all the members of the sampled communities.^[2] Because of its ability to reveal the previously hidden diversity of microscopic life, metagenomics offers a powerful lens for viewing the microbial world that has the potential to revolutionize understanding of the entire living world.^[3] As the price of DNA sequencing continues to fall, metagenomics now allows microbial ecology to be investigated at a much greater scale and detail than before.