| Abstract: | The biological mechanisms that direct the generation and accumulationof the vast diversity of metabolites observed in the plant kingdomare not fully understood. An exciting and promising approachto understand these mechanisms is described in the paper byXie et al. (2009). The authors have coupled state of the artmetabolomic analyses with novel bioinformatic techniques toidentify apparent ‘metabolic modules’ in turmeric(Curcuma longa) rhizomes. A metabolic module is defined as agroup of co-regulated metabolites and this approach elegantlyrepresents a basic innovative and practical attempt to understandand predict metabolic pathways using detailed bioinformaticsdata mining following careful and well-documented GC-MS andLC-MS |
