The Transcriptome is the set of all mRNA molecules (or transcripts) in one or a population of biological cells for a given set of environmental circumstances. Therefore, unlike the genome, which is fixed for a given organism (apart from genetic polymorphisms), the transcriptome varies depending upon the context of the experiment.
Transcriptomics depicts the expression level of genes, often using techniques capable of sampling tens of thousands of different mRNA molecules at a time (eg DNA microarrays). It must be noted that the level of a given gene's mRNA is not directly proportional to the level of that gene's protein. The complete protein complement of a system is referred to as its proteome. Studying the transcriptome remains an important part of researching the circuits of life (metabolome).
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