Integration of metabolomics and proteomics in molecular plant physiology--coping with the complexity by...

In recent years, genomics has been extended to functional genomics. Toward the characterization of organisms or species on the genome level, changes on the metabolite and protein level have been shown to be essential to assign functions to genes and to describe the dynamic molecular phenotype. Gas chromatography (GC) and liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC- and LC-MS) are well suited for the fast and comprehensive analysis of ultracomplex metabolite samples. For the integration of metabolite profiles with quantitative protein profiles, a high throughput (HTP) shotgun proteomics approach using LC-MS and label-free quantification of unique proteins in a complex protein digest is described. Multivariate statistics are applied to examine sample pattern recognition based on data-dimensionality reduction and biomarker identification in plant systems biology. The integration of the data reveal multiple correlative biomarkers providing evidence for an increase of information in such holistic approaches. With computational simulation of metabolic networks and experimental measurements, it can be shown that biochemical regulation is reflected by metabolite network dynamics measured in a metabolomics approach. Examples in molecular plant physiology are presented to substantiate the integrative approach.