Glycomics is the comprehensive study of
glycomes (the entire complement of
sugars, whether free or present in more complex
molecules of an
organism), including genetic, physiologic, pathologic, and other aspects. Glycomics "is the systematic study of all
glycan structures of a given cell type or organism" and is a subset of
glycobiology. The term glycomics is derived from the chemical prefix for sweetness or a sugar, "glyco-", and was formed to follow the naming convention established by
genomics (which deals with
genes) and
proteomics (which deals with
proteins).