The Lotus japonicus Genome

16

Metabolomics

Yuji Sawada and Toshio Aoki

Abstract

Metabolomics is an“omics”approach for the comprehensive profiling of

the small molecules in an organism, which has been made possible by recent

advances in mass spectrometry (MS), and is considered to be one of the

essential tools for functional genomics and systems biology. Several

methodologies have been developed to meet the various types of

requirements of metabolomics, such as high throughput, high sensitivity,

high selectivity, unbiasedness and reproducibility. This chapter outlines

recent advances in plant metabolomics with case studies ofLotus japonicus,

including targeted analyses, widely targeted analysis and non-targeted

analysis, and poses the next challenges for integrated metabolomics.

16.1 Introduction

The last two decades have seen advances in
technology that have brought about revolutionary
changes in biological research. The level of
analysis has shifted from studying the functions
and expression of individual genes to studying
large numbers of genes and gene products

simultaneously. Advances in automated nucleo-

tide sequencing have enabled the accumulation

of enormous sets of sequence information for

both genomic and complementary DNAs, and

genomes of a broad range of organisms continue

to be sequenced. mRNA profiling using micro-

arrays and whole transcriptome shotgun

sequencing (RNA-seq) allows comprehensive

analysis of transcripts (De Luis et al. 2012 ).

Advances in mass spectrometry (MS) have made

comprehensive and highly sensitive analyses of

proteins and metabolites possible. These tech-

nologies have advanced thefields of functional

genomics and systems biology, both of which

depend on the comprehensive profiling of large

numbers of gene expression products. Such

profiling is referred to as transcriptomics, pro-

teomics and metabolomics.

Metabolomics is an“omics”approach for the

comprehensive detection of the small molecules

in an organism, including amino acids, organic

Y. Sawada
RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science,
1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama,
Kanagawa 230-0045, Japan

Y. Sawada
RIKEN Plant Science Center, 1-7-22 Suehiro-cho,
Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 230-0045, Japan

T. Aoki (&)
Department of Applied Biological Sciences, Nihon
University, Fujisawa, Kanagawa 252-0880, Japan
e-mail: [email protected]

S. Tabata and J. Stougaard (eds.),The Lotus japonicus Genome, Compendium of Plant Genomes,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-44270-8_16,©Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

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