The aim of genomics is to study the genome, or the collection of genetic material in an organism. Genomics subfields, or other -omics, such as Transcriptomics and proteomics aim to characterize genome function by quantifying products of the genome (such as RNA and proteins) under different conditions. In doing so, omics gain insight into different levels of regulation of gene expression and therefore genome function. However, these fields characterize biomolecules that have already been formed. In some cases, RNA or protein abundance does not reflect function because these biomolecules may be degraded rapidly, or they may remain in a cell long after they are initially synthesized. When using proteomics techniques to study the proteome, regulation of protein abundance at the level of post-translational modification and protein degradation may obscure earlier regulatory processes. Because cellular functions are often regulated at the level of translation, meaning the transcriptome does not always reflect genome function, using translatomics techniques to study the translatome may allow one to observe regulation of genome function that would be obscured in transcriptomics or proteomics studies.
