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Updated: Aug 15, 2026

Annotation of Plant Gene Function via Combined Genomics, Metabolomics and Informatics
Published on: June 17, 2012
Metabolomics and its role in understanding cellular responses in plants
Ritu Bhalla1, Kothandaraman Narasimhan, Sanjay Swarup
1Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Malaysia.
Abstract:
A natural shift is taking place in the approaches being adopted by plant scientists in response to the accessibility of systems-based technology platforms. Metabolomics is one such field, which involves a comprehensive non-biased analysis of metabolites in a given cell at a specific time. This review briefly introduces the emerging field and a range of analytical techniques that are most useful in metabolomics when combined with computational approaches in data analyses. Using cases from Arabidopsis and other selected plant systems, this review highlights how information can be integrated from metabolomics and other functional genomics platforms to obtain a global picture of plant cellular responses. We discuss how metabolomics is enabling large-scale and parallel interrogation of cell states under different stages of development and defined environmental conditions to uncover novel interactions among various pathways. Finally, we discuss selected applications of metabolomics.
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