Plant Metabolomics Reviews

Sustainable agriculture and bio-based production require a quantitative understanding of how living systems allocate carbon, energy, and nutrients. Metabolic Flux Analysis (MFA) addresses this need by combining stable isotope tracing with computational modeling to quantify intracellular reaction rates and reveal how metabolic networks function in vivo. Over the past two decades, MFA has identified key metabolic nodes that regulate carbon partitioning and biomass formation, providing actionable...

INTRODUCTION: Plant pathogens pose a critical threat to global agriculture by significantly reducing crop productivity through the negative impact on plant physiology and associated microbial communities. Grapevines (Vitis vinifera), a high-value crop worldwide, are highly susceptible to a range of bacterial and fungal vascular pathogens. In this study, we investigated the effects of five major grapevine pathogens-Diplodia seriata, Eutypa lata, Neofusicoccum parvum, Phaeoacremonium minimum, and...

This review highlights Lunaria annua as a next‑generation industrial oilseed with a unique fatty acid profile and emerging genomic tools, positioning it for significant improvement and broad applications in biolubricants, bioplastics, and bio-based therapeutics. Lunaria annua, an ornamental of the Brassicaceae species, is emerging as a valuable oilseed crop due to its high levels of erucic and nervonic acids with applications in biolubricants, bioplastics, and neurotherapeutics. Recent advances...

Red meat intake has been associated with the evolutionary journey of human beings, shaping metabolic pathways, cognitive development, and social complexity. Beyond its role as a nutrient source, meat, beef particularly, represents a biologically complex matrix whose composition reflects the ecological and production contexts in which the animal was raised. This review integrates evidence from evolutionary biology, nutritional science, epigenetics, and metabolomics to reframe the role of beef...

Cereal root systems perceive the onset of drought and heavy metal toxicity, which rapidly triggers signal transduction and extensive transcriptional reprogramming that underpins plant stress tolerance. This review discusses the transcriptional basis of root responses to abiotic stresses, emphasizing key regulatory genes and networks that orchestrate hormone signaling, redox dynamics, ion homeostasis, and structural modifications. Key transcription factor families-NAC, WRKY, bZIP, DREB, ARF, and...

The genus Dracocephalum (Lamiaceae), comprising over 60 species predominantly distributed in Europe and Asia, has historically been used in traditional medicine and has recently attracted growing scientific interest due to its diverse pharmacological and phytochemical properties. Despite increasing pharmacological and phytochemical investigations, the antioxidant potential and related bioactivities of Dracocephalum species remain fragmented across individual studies, with limited efforts to...

Compounds from olive (Olea europaea L.) and pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) have many beneficial effects on human health. This review paper considers the inhibitory potential, under in vitro conditions, of bioactive components of olive and pomegranate on different enzyme systems. Research shows that olive polyphenols (oleuropein, hydroxytyrosol, luteolin, and oleocanthal), as well as pomegranate polyphenols (punicalagin, urolithin A, ellagic acid), inhibit cyclooxygenase and lipoxygenase...

Bitter phytochemicals, including alkaloids, terpenoids, and bitter glycosides, are abundant in medicinal food plants and exhibit well-documented anti-inflammatory, hypoglycemic, and other bioactivities relevant to human health. However, the inherent bitterness of these compounds presents a significant sensory barrier to patient compliance and limits their application as functional food ingredients. This review provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary synthesis of current knowledge on...

Boron (B) is an essential micronutrient, yet its excess induces phytotoxicity, especially in semi-arid and alkaline soils, severely constraining crop productivity. This review delineates the physiological, biochemical, and molecular responses of plants to B toxicity, highlighting oxidative stress, membrane disruption, metabolic imbalance, and photosynthetic impairment as primary consequences. Multi-omics studies, including transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, have identified key...

X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry is increasingly used in botanical drug research for rapid, nondestructive, multi-elemental analysis. This systematic review examines the principles and applications of major XRF techniques-including energy-dispersive XRF (EDXRF), wavelength-dispersive XRF (WDXRF), total reflection XRF (TXRF), synchrotron radiation XRF (SR-XRF), and portable XRF (pXRF)-in medicinal plant analysis. Key applications include heavy metal safety screening, nutritional profiling,...

Rapeseed is a major source of vegetable oil and contains a wide variety of metabolites. Recent advances, particularly the integration of metabolomics with other omics approaches, have enabled not only comprehensive but also detailed analyses of key metabolites that respond to specific conditions. To date, these recent advances in the metabolomics of Brassica crops have not yet been fully clarified. In this review, we seek to summarize the recent progresses in metabolomics studies of Brassica...

INTRODUCTION: Dogs are omnivores, not herbivores, and yet entirely plant-based diets are formulated to meet their current known nutrient recommendations. However, little is known about the metabolic effects of feeding diets containing no animal-derived nutrients. Metabolomics allows for the investigation of dietary influences on animal metabolism and physiology beyond what may be revealed by routine healthcare assessments.

Tomato fruit ripening is accompanied by profound biochemical and microbial-associated changes that collectively shape fruit flavor, quality, and susceptibility to (a)biotic stresses. However, integrated insights into the co-varying effect of metabolic reprogramming and fruit-associated microbiome across ripening stages remain limited. Here, we employed a multi-omics approach to investigate stage-dependent shifts in the metabolome and bacteriome of cherry tomato fruits across three ripening...

The cultivation of rice (Oryza sativa L.) has become increasingly challenging due to various abiotic stresses such as elevated salinity and drought conditions, and these challenges will only worsen with climate change. This review highlights recent advancements in CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technology as applied to developing rice for greater tolerance of abiotic stresses. Functional genomics analysis (including transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic data) has identified and validated key...

Engineering carbon-concentrating mechanisms (CCMs) into C3 crops is a promising strategy to improve photosynthetic efficiency by increasing the availability of CO(2) near the active site of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO), the enzyme responsible for carbon fixation. The biophysical CCM of the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii includes stromal limiting CO(2)-inducible protein B (LCIB) protein, which contributes to inorganic carbon retention. Here, we accumulated LCIB...

P. digitatum, the causal agent of citrus green mold, remains the most destructive postharvest pathogen of citrus worldwide. Recent advances have greatly expanded our understanding of the molecular dialogue between P. digitatum and citrus hosts, revealing coordinated virulence strategies involving cell wall-degrading enzymes, major facilitator superfamily transporters, transcription factors, and secondary metabolism, alongside host defenses mediated by phytohormones and specialized metabolites....

Real-time profiling of plant volatiles provides insight into metabolic regulation, yet rapid and high-throughput characterization remains analytically challenging. Here, we apply temperature programming secondary electrospray ionization (TP-SESI) mass spectrometry to compare volatile organic compound (VOC) profiles from wild-type and PAP1-overexpressing tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum). This study extends the application of TP-SESI, which was originally developed for plant volatile analysis, to...

Glutamicibacter has been recently reclassified from the genus Arthrobacter and represents a rare group of actinobacteria with significant biotechnological potential. Based on 16S rRNA signatures and phylogenomic evidence, its species have been discovered in diverse habitats including soils, sediments, wetlands, permafrost, saline coasts, and deserts. Ecologically, they act as endophytes, rhizosphere partners, and pioneers in extreme environments, reflecting exceptional resilience. These rare...

Improving nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in wheat is critical for addressing the dual challenges of global food security and environmental sustainability. Globally, only 42%-47% of applied nitrogen (N) fertilisers taken up by crops, with remainder lost to the environment, driving soil and water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and ecological imbalances. This review provides a comprehensive synthesis and integrative framework- integrating agronomic practices, advanced remote sensing and...

Abiotic stress frequency and intensity are increasing, severely impacting plants' health, hence leading to significant crop yield losses (~20%-40% globally). In addition to modifying their genetic and physiological traits to increase stress tolerance, growing research revealed that plant-microbiome interaction plays a remarkable role in determining stress resilience. This review integrates physiological, ecological, and multi-omics data suggesting holobiont plasticity is an unifying paradigm for...