Metabolomics for the assessment of functional diversity and quality traits in plants

Abstract

From the outset there has been tremendous interest in the potential of metabolomics technologies to expand our fundamental knowledge of biological systems and no more so than in the field of plant science. The number of reviews written in the early years of metabolomics significantly outnumbered the number of true, research-driven scientific papers. With other functional genomics technologies paving the way to bigger and better things, scientists' appetites have been whetted for holistic approaches to the study of bio-molecular organisation in living organisms. Metabolomics is not only complementary to the other 'omics' technologies but also is considered to have clear additional advantages (Goodacre et al, 2004). As metabolites are the most distant products downstream from gene expression, changes in the metabolome should be amplified with respect to those for the transcriptome and proteome. Indeed, the metabolome should most closely reflect the activities of a cell at the functional level (Goodacre et al, 2004). © 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. All rights reserved.