Integrating profiling data: using linear correlation to reveal coregulation of transcript and metabolites.

Recent advances in the medical and biological sciences have been characterized by a major paradigm shift from reductionism to integrated and holistic systems approaches. Such approaches are characterized at the experimental level by the multiparallel analysis of a multitude of parameters of a given biological system at a range of different molecular levels, following the systematic perturbation of the system in question. Although a multitude of studies have been carried out to assess the transcript, protein, and metabolite complements of cells under various conditions, to date, few have been attempted that encompass the profiling of more than one of these entities. In this chapter, we describe combined analysis of data obtained from transcript and metabolic profiling, and detail advantages of using both approaches in parallel.