Omics approaches in food safety: fulfilling the promise?

• Whole-genome sequencing can be useful in foodborne disease outbreak detection.
• Metagenomics can characterize the diversity in food systems and detect new pathogens.
• Transcriptomics and proteomics have provided data to develop new control strategies.
• Synthetic biology provides new opportunities to detect and control foodborne pathogens.

Genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics are rapidly transforming our approaches to the detection, prevention, and treatment of foodborne pathogens. Microbial genome sequencing in particular has evolved from a research tool into an approach that can be used to characterize foodborne pathogen isolates as part of routine surveillance systems. Genome sequencing efforts will not only improve outbreak detection and source tracking, but will also create large amounts of foodborne pathogen genome sequence data, which will be available for data-mining efforts that could facilitate better source attribution and provide new insights into foodborne pathogen biology and transmission. Although practical uses and application of metagenomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics data and associated tools are less prominent, these tools are also starting to yield practical food safety solutions.