Figure 1

Integration of multiple omics-level. Simplified overview of the integration of omics data at the DNA, transcript and protein level and the regulatory miRNA and DNA methylation levels. According to the “central dogma of molecular biology” [34] information is transferred from DNA (genes, blue) to the RNA level (transcripts, green) and to the protein level (proteins, red) in a linear manner. Proteins i.e. enzymes then catalyse biochemical reactions in which metabolites are processed. The metabolites are indicated by grey circles whilst the κ sign symbolises that this process follows certain kinetics. The concentration of metabolites is well measured by receptor proteins - therefore, there is a strong communication between the protein and metabolite level. However, both transcription and translation and the lifetime of transcripts and proteins is regulated by other levels such as DNA methylation (cyan) [35, 36] and miRNAs (pink) [37, 38]. Mediated by transcription factors (yellow) [39, 40] there is also a powerful feedback from the protein level back to the DNA level. Another powerful molecular switch are proteins (DNA methyltransferases and DNA demethylases, light-blue) that control transcription by changing the level of methylation of histones - therefore, there is a feedback from the protein level to the DNA methylation level.