Dear all,
I've had thoughts that our understanding of what drives the biology underlying health and disease may be skewed towards DNA and RNA level alterations.
Aside from the central dogma of biology; DNA -> RNA -> Protein, I believe there may be a skewed understanding because the tools available to investigate DNA and RNA alterations are more advanced than the tools available for protein or metabolite level analysis.
DNA and RNA sequencing are cheaper, higher throughput, more accurate, and have better coverage than mass-spectrometry for proteomics. I'm wondering how much the availability of tools influences our understanding of at what level diseases occur.
Of course this is a gross simplification, as there will always be factors at play and interactions at multiple levels.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
Sam
Good thoughts. Always use the right tools and have prevision from different angles when you try to answer thorny questions. I believe that nobody wants to twist in such perception—the readouts from DNA or RNA is more accurate or important than the one from protein level. For example, you will never be able to understand post-translational modification impact on diseases solely relying on the readouts from DNA or RNA sequencing. They are equally important so long as the result can mutually support each other.
Heritable diseases tend to be the more obvious ones and are caused by genomic mutations, often at a single locus. This makes finding the causative locus easier. The underlying mechanisms are often then subsequently probed. Diseases caused by environmental exposure and lifestyle are harder to probe as they often involve the interaction of multiple gene products.
I'm also struggling to find literature that discusses this issue, I'd appreciate it if anyone has some good references!
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