Predictive metabolic engineering in plants : still full of surprises

In an important recent paper Kristensen et al. address a question of fundamental importance in plant biotechnology: how are metabolic pathways affected upon introduction of a transgene? Analysis of the transcriptome and metabolome of Arabidopsis thaliana engineered to produce the cyanogenic glucoside dhurrin demonstrated that plants can be tailored in a rational manner with marginal inadvertent effects.