Chapter Three Metabolomics: A developing and integral component in functional genomic studies of medicago truncatula

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the functional genomics and metabolomic approaches currently being pursued for Medicago truncatula . The sciences of functional genomics and metabolomics are maturing. Many of the approaches discussed are still in developmental stages and have yet to reach their full potential. Most of the individual profiling components are still being operated independently and they need to be integrated in the future. Current bioinformatic tools for processing, visualization, and integration of large metabolomic datasets are limited. These tools need to be refined and automated to allow for the processing of data on an “omic” scale. New bioinformatic tools are also needed for the integration of data from multiple levels of expression to provide an in-depth view of gene expression and function.