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Array of hope

Nature Genetics volume 21, pages 3–4 (1999)Cite this article

Genomics aims to provide biologists with the equivalent of chemistry's Periodic Table1 — an inventory of all genes used to assemble a living creature, together with an insightful system for classifying these building blocks. A short decade ago, the task of enumeration alone appeared to many to be a quixotic quest. Whereas chemical matter is composed of a mere hundred or so elements, organismal parts lists are huge — running into the thousands for bacteria and hundreds of thousands for mammals. Genomic mapping and sequencing, however, has steadily extended its dominion: it has domesticated the Megabase and will tame the Gigabase in the not–too–distant future.

The next great challenge is to discern the underlying order. The Periodic Table summarized chemical propensities in its rows and columns, and thereby foreshadowed the secrets of subatomic structure. Understanding biological systems with 100,000 genes will similarly require organizing the parts by their properties. The Biological Periodic Table will not be two–dimensional, but will reflect similarities at diverse levels: primary DNA sequence in coding and regulatory regions; polymorphic variation within a species or subgroup; time and place of expression of RNAs during development, physiological response and disease; and subcellular localization and intermolecular interaction of protein products. The traditional gene–by–gene approach will not suffice to meet the sheer magnitude of the problem. It will be necessary to take 'global views' of biological processes: simultaneous readouts of all components.

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  1. Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA, 02142, Massachusetts

    Eric S Lander

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Lander, E. Array of hope. Nat Genet 21 (Suppl 1), 3–4 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/4427

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