Basics and Tools of Genomics

Abstract

During the twentieth century, with the rapid advancement in elucidating the mechanisms of heredity and in technologies giving direct access to the blueprint of an organism, the basis for a new discipline called ‘genomics’ was established. Phenotype differences between animals can now be studied from a completely different point of view, namely the nucleotide sequence. A major goal of genomics is to gain an exhaustive understanding of the structure and the function of genomes through a detailed molecular characterization of whole genomes. Therefore, genomic approaches can help in the dissection of the genetic components of a qualitative, quantitative and complex trait, and thus new possible applications for animal selection can be considered in the near future (for example, marker-assisted selection).