ABSTRACT

In recent years, studies of the genome (genomics) have been extended to a research area called functional genomics. This area covers studies of

1Centro de Biotecnología y Genómica de Plantas (UPM-INIA), Campus de Montegancedo, M40 (km38), 28223 Pozuelo de Alarcón/Madrid, Spain. ae-mail: julia.kehr@upm.es *Corresponding author

more function-related aspects of the genome itself, such as polymorphism and mutation analysis, as well as measurements of the molecules that result from gene expression, namely RNAs, proteins and metabolites. A number of large-scale, high-throughput “-omics” technologies that allow comprehensive measurements of gene expression (transcriptomics), protein expression (proteomics), and low-molecular-weight chemical composition (metabolomics) have been developed to facilitate such studies. Together, these high-throughput techniques can improve our understanding of gene and protein functions and interactions in different organisms under various environmental or physiological conditions. Modern -omics approaches are driven by rapid advances in analytical technologies and their recent commercialization offers a non-biased suite of tools to understand plant physiological mechanisms by integrating signal transduction, cellular metabolism, and phenotype analysis.