Metabolomic Analysis of Natural Variation in Arabidopsis

Methodological advances in coupled-mass spectrometry (gas chromatography and liquid chromatography; GC-MS and LC-MS) have rendered the profiling of highly complex plant extracts relatively facile and allowed that their high-throughput use aids the investigation of a range of biological questions. Among these is the elucidation of the genetic factors underlying metabolite abundance. For this purpose genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are being widely adopted in Arabidopsis with the resultant quantitative trait loci being subjected to cross-validation by the use of recombinant inbred lines, introgression lines, and T-DNA insertional knockout lines.