The diversity of useful compounds produced by plant secondary metabolism has stimulated broad systems biology approaches to identify the genes involved in their biosynthesis. Systems biology studies in non-model plants pose interesting but addressable challenges, and have be ...
In recent years the number of sequenced and annotated plant genomes has increased significantly, and novel approaches are required to retrieve valuable information from these data sets. The field of systems biology has accelerated the simulation and prediction of phenotypes derived ...
A genome-scale model (GSM) is an in silico metabolic model comprising hundreds or thousands of chemical reactions that constitute the metabolic inventory of a cell, tissue, or organism. A complete, accurate GSM, in conjunction with a simulation technique such as flux balance analysis (FBA), ...
In the recent years, a large number of genomes from a variety of different organisms have been sequenced. Most of the sequence data has been publicly released and can be assessed by interested users. However, this wealth of information is currently underexploited by scientists not directly inv ...
The IUBMB Enzyme List is widely used by other databases as a source for avoiding ambiguity in the recognition of enzymes as catalytic entities. However, it was not designed for metabolic pathway tracing, which has become increasingly important in systems biology. A Reactions Database has been ...
Metabolic databases such as The Plant Metabolic Network/MetaCyc and KEGG PATHWAY are publicly accessible resources providing organism-specific information on reactions and metabolites. KEGG PATHWAY depicts metabolic networks as wired, electronic circuit-like maps, wh ...
Stable isotope labeling experiments (ILE) constitute a powerful methodology for estimating metabolic fluxes. An optimal label design for such an experiment is necessary to maximize the precision with which fluxes can be determined. But often, precision gained in the determination of ...
Isotope labeling experiments (ILEs) offer a powerful methodology to perform metabolic flux analysis. However, the task of interpreting data from these experiments to evaluate flux values requires significant mathematical modeling skills. Toward this, this chapter provides b ...
Mass spectrometry (MS) offers a sensitive, reliable, and highly accurate method for measurement of isotopic labeling, which is required for generating comprehensive flux maps using metabolic flux analysis (MFA). We present protocols for assessing isotope labeling in a wide range of bi ...
Two-dimensional heteronuclear single quantum correlation (HSQC) spectroscopy nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a comprehensive tool in metabolic flux analysis using 13C-labeling experiments. NMR is particularly relevant when extensive isotopomer measurements a ...
Cellular metabolites and ions can exhibit very specific spatiotemporal dynamics that are very challenging to monitor using extraction-based methods. Genetically encoded F�ster resonance energy transfer sensors afford a powerful method of measuring these dynamics in situ and ...
Plant volatiles occupy diverse roles as signaling molecules, defensive compounds, hormones, and even waste products. Exponential growth in the related literature coupled with the availability of new analytical and computational technologies has inspired novel avenues of inq ...
Single-cell analysis of metabolites by mass spectrometry (MS) is challenging due to the very limited volume and inherent molecular complexity of the sample. Quantitative metabolomic analysis of individual cells provides information on the metabolic heterogeneity of cells una ...
Polyphenolics are a chemically diverse class of plant specialized metabolites with strong antioxidant properties, and their consumption has been associated with improved human health. Metabolomic analysis of these compounds in both plant and mammalian samples has relied pred ...
Plant primary metabolites are organic compounds that are common to all or most plant species and are essential for plant growth, development, and reproduction. They are intermediates and products of metabolism involved in photosynthesis and other biosynthetic processes. Primary m ...
Medicago truncatula is one of the model species for legume molecular genetics. In the last decade different types of mutant populations have been created in this species that can be screened by forward and reverse-genetic approaches to identify and functionally characterize genes of int ...
A large population of Medicago truncatula insertion lines has been generated using the Tnt1 retrotransposon. More than 21,000 insertion lines have been generated, representing more than 500,000 insertion events. This mutant population is being used by the legume research community ...
High-throughput sequencing techniques have been applied to the discovery of several different regulatory small RNAs, including siRNAs and microRNAs in different plant species. Their subsequent characterization demands the use of sensitive and quantitative methods for the ...
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, endogenous RNAs that play important regulatory roles in development and stress response in plants by negatively regulating gene expression post-transcriptionally. Medicago truncatula has been used as a model plant to study functional genomics of le ...
Functional analysis of post-genomics data is essential to identify the biological processes involved in a given investigation. Although most of the ontological tools available are limited to organisms with well-annotated genomes, this chapter provides an overview of two complem ...