Genome wide approaches in natural product research

Abstract

Within the last decade, the strategy for pathway discovery in plant secondary metabolism has reversed from a metabolite to protein to gene approach to a gene to pathway strategy. Different genome-wide omics strategies apply to gene discovery in model plants with sequenced genomes and plants of pharmaceutical or industrial interest. In this chapter, we provide a brief description as well as a few examples of the main approaches that have so far been applied to plant metabolism. Combination of such global approaches leads to the new field of 'integrative biology', which highlights metabolic networks connecting the different branches of primary and secondary metabolism.