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The importance of multi-omics approaches for the health assessment of freshwater ecosystems

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Abstract

Background

The major goals of monitoring aquatic animals are to understand ecosystem health status and to identify signals of environmental change and pollution. Over the past few decades, advances in individual omics technology have been expanded to aquatic ecotoxicology and health assessment. The single-omics approach has produced one type of result, but recently, the combined multi-omics approach has enabled depiction of multidimensional datasets for holistic interpretation regarding the molecular responses of biological systems.

Objective

In this mini review, the power of the multi-omics approach for monitoring the health of freshwater animals is described, along with a discussion on challenges and the current limitations in the complexity of integrating multidimensional datasets.

Results

Recent studies have suggested that the aquatic ecotoxicology field can benefit significantly using multi-omics platforms; however, the examples of multi-omics applications remain limited. The complex metabolism underlying the sensitivity, health status, response, tolerance, and adaptation of certain aquatic organisms can be uncovered through comprehensively integrated omics results and advanced bioinformatics.

Conclusion

Multi-omics approaches can provide crucial datasets for developing multidimensional biomarkers and deciphering novel biological insights into aquatic ecotoxicology and health assessments. This platform provides a novel opportunity for environmental scientists to connect the biological responses and chemical data in aquatic organisms exposed to environmental challenges.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Korea Environment Industry & Technology Institute (KEITI) through the Aquatic Ecosystem Conservation Research Program funded by the Korea Ministry of Environment (MOE) (2022003050001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marine Science, College of Natural Sciences, Incheon National University, Incheon, 22012, South Korea

    Sang-Eun Nam & Jae-Sung Rhee

  2. Institute of Korea Eco-Network, Daejeon, 34028, South Korea

    Dae-Yeul Bae

  3. Department of Biotechnology, Sangmyung University, Seoul, 03016, South Korea

    Jang-Seu Ki

  4. Cell Factory Research Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Daejeon, 34141, South Korea

    Chi-Yong Ahn

  5. Research Institute of Basic Sciences, Incheon National University, Incheon, 22012, South Korea

    Jae-Sung Rhee

  6. Yellow Sea Research Institute, Incheon, 22012, Republic of Korea

    Jae-Sung Rhee

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  1. Sang-Eun Nam
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  2. Dae-Yeul Bae
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  3. Jang-Seu Ki
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  4. Chi-Yong Ahn
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  5. Jae-Sung Rhee
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Contributions

SEN conceived of the idea and wrote the manuscript. DYB aided in interpreting the previous work. JSK discussed the idea and contributed to the final manuscript. CYA discussed the idea and contributed to the final manuscript. JSR supervised the work and wrote the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jae-Sung Rhee.

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Conflict of interest

Author SEN declares that he has no conflict of interest. Author DYB declares that he has no conflict of interest. Author JSK declares that he has no conflict of interest. Author CYA declares that he has no conflict of interest. Author JSR declares that he has no conflict of interest.

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Nam, SE., Bae, DY., Ki, JS. et al. The importance of multi-omics approaches for the health assessment of freshwater ecosystems. Mol. Cell. Toxicol. 19, 3–11 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13273-022-00286-2

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