Correct adjective from “transcriptome” and other similar biological terms

Question

In the last 20 years or so researchers have been able to study the complete set of RNA transcripts present in a single organism in a particular state. This is referred to as a transcriptome — a combination of transcript and “ome”, the latter being the term adopted for this sort of totality. The study of such transcripts is termed transcriptomics. A similar term had been coined originally for the complete set of genetic information (genome), and this was also applied to all the proteins present in a cell (proteome) or all the reacting chemicals — metabolites — (metabolome).

My concern is whether there is a grammatically correct adjective derived from these terms. The eminent journal Nature has published articles with the terms "transcriptome profiling," "transcriptomic profiling," and "transcriptomal profiling," all with the same intended meaning.

Perhaps it is possible that the best option is to share responsibilities among the aforementioned adjectives? For example, "transcriptomic" could be suitable when describing methods within the field of transcriptomics, "transcriptomal" might be relevant when describing data obtained through transcriptomics, and "transcriptome" (as an adjective) could be fitting when referring to the initial acquisition of data. This implies that all three adjectives can be correctly combined within a single article.

Answer 1

Preliminary remark
My original answer to this question was nonsense. I apologize. I hope the revised answer makes up for that. I thank @Henry and Brian Donovan for their comments.

“Correct” adjectives
The word “correct” in regard to scientific English sometimes acts as a red rag, especially in the modern biological sciences, which move too fast for standards bodies. However communication is aided by consistency, and I would submit that precedent — as in other aspects of the English language — is both a guide to, and an indication of, usage.

Rephrasing the question
I therefore intend to present a table of usage adjectives derived from ‘omics’ nouns (meaning the study or discipline related to the ‘ome’), and those that appear to relate to the ‘ome’ itself, although these are sometimes hard to distinguish. For comparison I shall also present the adjectives used with some ‘ics’ disciplines which are not ‘omics’, and some biological ‘omes’ that have no ‘omics’. I have therefore modified the question to fit (rather than posting a new one, which I can do if there is an objection). The table will be split into the relevant parts

Evidence
The table is based primarily on either (1) whether an adjectival form appears in my Chambers dictionary, (2) the results of Google ngram books searches. A bracketed entry indicates that the form is less frequent than the main one. A dash indicates that it is not used or very infrequent. ‘Attributive’ means the noun form was used adjectivally.

Table: Part 1 — General ‘ics’ disciplines (not ‘omes’)

‘ics’ Discipline	root	adjectival ‘-ic’	adjectival ‘-al’	attributive
mathematics	Greek	—	mathematical	—
statistics	Latin	—	statistical	—
optics	Greek	optic	optical	—
obstetrics	Latin	obstetric	obstetrical	—
genetics	gene	genetic	(genetical)	—

Note that ‘gene’ is also the root of ‘genome’ in Table 3.

Table: Part 2 — ‘omes’ lacking associated disciplines

‘ome’	root	adjectival ‘-ic’	adjectival ‘-al’	attributive
chromosome	Greek	—	chromosomal	chromosome
ribosome	ribo-	—	ribosomal	ribosome

Brian Donovan pointed out that these (older) terms are derived from soma, as in somatic, and differ from the more recent ‘omes’, where the suffix indicates an aggregate or totality. However I felt it worth presenting as sometimes words are formed by false associations.

Table: Part 3 — ‘omes’ having associated disciplines

‘ome’	root	adjectival ‘-ic’	adjectival ‘-al’	attributive
genome	gene	genomic	—	genome
proteome	protein	proteomic	—	(proteome)
metabolome	metabolite	metabolomic	—	(metabolome)

The simple ‘genomal’ type is not found; the bloated ‘genomical’ type is infrequent compared with ‘genomic’ (see this Google ngram).

Table: Part 4 — ‘ics’ disciplines derived from ‘omes’

‘omics’ Discipline	root	adjectival ‘-ic’	adjectival ‘-al’	attributive
genomics	genome	genomic	—	(genomics)
proteomics	proteome	proteomic	—	(proteomics)
metabolomics	metabolome	metabolomic	—	(metabolomics)

These examples were chosen as they are longer established (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_omics_topics_in_biology) (genome — 1930, proteome — 1994, metabolome — 1998) than some of the more recently-coined niche [‘omics’]. Note that the ‘-ic’ adjectival form is also used for the ‘ome’, introducing potential ambiguity. However the need for an adjective specifically from the discipline is not great. The use of a preposition, e.g. “A book about genomics”, would seem to me better than the unnatural attributive noun “A genomics book”, however the current issue of Nature has a paper with “proteomics comparisons” and “genetics associations” in the title, so who am I to say there seems to have been some ‘naturalization’ of this form.

…and the adjective from Transcriptomics?
It transpires that the term transcriptome is of similar vintage to proteome and metabolome. Because of this and the general format which words of this type take, I feel that it is incorrect to suggest that the adjectival forms of the term are particularly in flux. Based on the results in presented in Part 2 of the table, I would say:

• “Transcriptomal profiling” is unusual, does not conform to the standard pattern, and should be avoided.
• “Transcriptomic profiling” is the common adjectival form and is to be recommended. It is the only one of the three found in a Google ngram comparison
• “Transcriptome profiling” — the attributive use of the noun as an adjective — is accepted nowadays. I personally don’t like it, but is even more common than ‘transcriptomic’ for this phrase, and I suppose it can be justified as reducing the number of syllables from four to three.

The idea of the poster that one might use each of the three adjectival forms, but in different contexts does not conform to practice, and it would be futile to suggest (to whom?) that this should be adopted.

Coda: Scientific journals and standards of English
I am a biological scientist who has published frequently over the last fifty years or so, and also reviewed scientific publications. The idea that even the highest profile journals (Nature and Science in my field) edit the English is a misconception. Different journals subedit to varying extents, but this is generally to a house style that is fairly limited in scope (e.g. ‘data’ as singular or plural). It would not include anything of this sort. Individual referees focus primarily on the scientific logic and rigour, and whether the experimental evidence supports the conclusions made. If the authors were non-native English speakers, I personally would provide a list of linguistic corrections, but when writers don’t know how to use articles, even I would probably pass on ‘transcriptomal’. Only a few journals do decent old-fashioned sub-editing, and they tend to be lower profile journals with priorities other than speed of publication.

Answer 2

In a comment Edwin Ashworth answered:

The fact that a reasonably authoritative publication such as Nature has published articles with the terms "transcriptome profiling," "transcriptomic profiling," and "transcriptomal profiling," all with the same intended meaning means that the terminology is in flux. With situations where competing candidates appear, one can only wait until there are sufficient samples to enable reasonable idiomaticity estimates. Usage is the prime driver as regards acceptability; morphology usually has to take a back seat.

Answer 3

Correct adjective derived from “transcriptome”

There is no adjective: the noun “transcriptome” is used attributively.

As examples:

Introductory Chapter: Transcriptome Analysis WRITTEN BY Miroslav Blumenberg Submitted: 07 March 2019 Published: 08 April 2019 DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.85980. https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/66606

The advent of long read technologies for RNA-seq has the potential to transform transcriptome analysis, since it can directly measure full-length isoforms

Dafni Glinos, New York Genome Center, US

The function of most genes is not yet known. A search of a transcriptome database can give researchers a list of all the tissues in which a gene is expressed, providing clues about its possible function. https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Transcriptome-Fact-Sheet