Omics refers to a field of biological sciences including genomics (studying DNA), transcriptomics (RNA), proteomics (proteins) and metabolomics (metabolites).
Guest Editor Carrie Finno has contributed an editorial in support of the nine EVJ articles demonstrating how genomic and transcriptomic approaches have been used to investigate equine diseases.
She said: “While equine genomics and transcriptomics continue to evolve, improvements in the annotation of the equine genome will undoubtedly accelerate the rate of discovery.
"With the need for large sample sizes of well-phenotyped horses to study the most complex diseases, equine genomics and transcriptomics research will likely become increasingly collaborative, similar to the current status of human genomics initiatives.
"Aligned with this collaborative effort is the strong need for publicly available genomic and transcriptomic data that are accessible to all researchers.”
Guest Editor James Anderson prefaces five papers on advances made in equine medicine within the disciplines of proteomics, metabolomics and lipidomics (a subset of metabolomics).
He said: “Omics technologies have enhanced our knowledge of the molecular world and provided fascinating insight into the composition and functions of these components across a range of different animal species.
"Particularly for equine science and medicine they have increased our understanding of molecular changes in disease and informed the development of diagnostic tests.
"Although still in its infancy within equine veterinary science, this field looks likely to have a significant impact in the coming years.”
The virtual Issue is available to all at https://beva.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1001/(ISSN)2042-3306.OmicsEVJ
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