Introduction

This is an NSF -funded multi-institutional pilot project that is developing metabolomics as a new functional genomics tool for elucidating the functions of Arabidopsis genes. The consortium has established metabolomic platforms that detect approximately 1,800 metabolites, of which 900 are chemically defined.

Initial studies are focused on investigating the robustness of the Arabidopsis metabolome, and define conditions that minimize the environmental and developmental effects on the metabolome. Subsequently, the consortium will apply metabolomic analyses on between 50 and 60 Arabidopsis genes whose functions are currently not fully defined. The consortium is profiling the metabolome of specific knockout alleles for these targeted genes, some of which have been generated by independent NSF 2010 projects. These data will be integrated with data concerning protein function, transcription and other studies to generate hypotheses concerning the functions of the targeted genes.