Advanced Computational Methods, NGS Tools, and Software for Mammalian Systems Biology

Improvements in animal health, productivity, or disease resistance require an understanding of functional genomics, which can be obtained using multiscale multi-omics data analysis. Multiscale omics data analysis requires the integration of bottom-up and top-down approaches to consider both the data available from an experiment as well as the existing knowledge of functional properties and interactions in the biological system. Such a comprehensive analysis is now possible through the integration of multi-omics data generated across multiple scales from genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics experiments. This type of systems biology-based analysis requires the use of different statistical methods and extensive network analysis fine-tuned for the purpose of identifying the key components associated with the required phenotypes. This will require integration of powerful statistical techniques with computational platforms capable of handling the large data volumes and the integrative nature of the analysis. In this chapter, we discuss all these aspects of systems biology with some of the tools and techniques.