Multiomics Approaches in Psychiatric Disorders

The past decade has seen the advent of high-throughput technologies to investigate many different levels of biology ranging from the genome and the epigenome via the transcriptome and the proteome all the way to the metabolome or the microbiome. The comprehensive, high-throughput, and often unbiased assessment of such a level of biology is referred to as “-omics.” Consequently, the study of multiple such levels of biology all at once is termed “multiomics.” This chapter addresses the application of multiomics to mental health disorders. In the first part, it introduces potential workflows for studying -omics of a single modality as well as in a multiomics format. It familiarizes the reader with both the great potential and the challenges inherent in working with -omics datasets. In the second part, proteomics and metabolomics and lipidomics serve as exemplary “-omics” dimensions and are used to highlight findings from studies that performed “-omics” analyses in blood and in central nervous system tissue as well as in animal and induced pluripotent stem cell models of mental disorders. As for most “-omics” studies, the aims of the depicted studies are both to provide a better understanding of the physiological and pathophysiological role of, in this case, proteins and metabolites in bringing about mental disorders and to establish potential biomarkers. The last section of the chapter poses the question of a potential clinical use of “-omics” technologies and the hurdles that need to be overcome on a path toward clinical translation.