Integration of omics Approaches and Systems Biology for Clinical Applications

This book presents different high throughput “omics” platforms used to analyze tissue, plasma and urine. State of the art analytical approaches (sample manipulation and instrumentation) related to proteomics, peptidomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics are presented. In addition, innovative approaches using bioinformatics, urine miRNAs and MALDI tissue imaging in the context of clinical applications are highlighted. Particular emphasis is put on integration of data generated from these different platforms in order to uncover the molecular determinants of the disease. The relevance of each approach to the clinical setting is presented and future applications for patient monitoring or treatment are discussed.

The book presents an over-view of state of the art -omics techniques currently used to obtain the comprehensive molecular profile of biological specimens as well as computational tools used for i) databasing of these multi-source data and ii) their integration towards developing molecular models for disease pathophysiology. Investigation of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and bladder cancer are used as test cases. These represent multi-factorial, highly heterogeneous diseases, and are among the most significant health issues in developed countries with a rapidly ageing population. In this book, novel insights on CKD and bladder cancer obtained by “omics” data integration are presented as an example of the application of systems biology in the clinical scenery.