At its simplest, the adductome is the totality of chemical adducts that are present in particular cellular macromolecules such as DNA, and RNA, or proteins found within the organism.
Adducts may arise as a consequence of the chemical reaction between a given "physicochemical agent to which an organism is exposed across the lifespan" (sometimes referred to as the exposome).
These physicochemical agents can be exogenous in origin, and include ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, the diet, lifestyle factors, pollution, and xenobiotics.
These mutations can result in a variety of adverse health effects, including cancer and birth defects in multicellular organisms.
NA adductomics builds upon previous DNA adductomics and DNA crosslinkomics [10] (which aims to analyze the totality of DNA-DNA crosslinks [11]) assays [12] and encompasses the analysis of modified (2′-deoxy)ribonucleosides (2′-dN/rN), modified nucleobases (nB), plus: DNA-DNA, RNA-RNA, DNA-RNA, DNA-protein, and RNA-protein crosslinks.