Metabolomics approaches enable the parallel assessment of the levels of a broad range of metabolites. They have been documented to have great value in phenotyping and diagnostic analyses in plants as well as showing great promise as a tool for bio-prospecting novel pharmaceuticals. These tools have recently been turned to evaluation of the natural variance apparent in metabolite composition both in the model species Arabidopsis thaliana and a range of crop species. Here, we describe exciting progress made in the identification of the genetic determinants of plant chemical composition, focusing on the application of various different metabolomics strategies.We focus on the integration of these data with those other high-throughput technologies and discuss the value of such approaches for gaining fundamental insights into metabolic and even cellular regulation. Finally, we discuss the fact that when considered from an applied perspective metabolomics represents an important addition to the tools currently employed in genomicsassisted selection for crop improvement.

English