The dawn of the functional genomics era in muscle physiology.

Skeletal muscle represents the most abundant component of the mature mammalian phenotype. Designed to generate contractile force and movement, skeletal muscle is crucial for organism health, function, and development. One of the great interests for muscle biologists is in understanding how skeletal muscle adapts during periods of stress and stimuli, such as disease, disuse and ageing. To this end, genomic based experimental and analytical approaches offer one of the most powerful approaches for comprehensively mapping the molecular paradigms that regulate skeletal muscle. With the power, applicability, and robustness of omic technologies continually being developed, we are now in a position to investigate these molecular mechanisms in skeletal muscle to an unprecedented level of accuracy and precision, dawning a new era of functional genomics in the field of muscle physiology. Abstract figure legend Skeletal muscle samples obtained from human or model organisms are used to study the adaptability of the tissue to differing stimuli. These homogenate samples contain an array of different cells, as well as a variety of different muscle cell types (myofibers), which may lead to the generated data not truly reflecting the molecular adaptations of muscle cells or muscle cell types, specifically. With the continued development of functional genomic approaches however, we now have the capacity to analyse purified myofibers on either a type specific, or individual cell manner potentially enabling more precise and accurate discoveries. This topical review showcases some of first forays into the functional genomics field in muscle physiology. We highlight developments in functional genomic methods, the applicability of these methods to studying skeletal muscle and some of the most promising areas of future research. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.