A review on metabolomics for quality improvement of fruit crops

Abstract

The field of metabolomics is gaining ground in plant biology, and its potential uses in agricultural biotechnology are expanding. Metabolomics is the study of metabolites, which are extremely small molecules. The phenotype correlates more strongly with the metabolomic profile than with the genomic, transcriptomic, or proteomic profiles. Plant metabolic profiling is another application of metabolomics that has been used to identify previously uncharacterized genes and their roles. The use of metabolomics to evaluate mutants and transgenic plants, track fruit development, determine quality, detect disease resistance, determine abiotic stress tolerance, etc., has become increasingly important. Metabolomics has also been applied to plant studies, which have become increasingly important in efforts to improve fruit quality. We first assess the profound influence metabolomics has had over the past decade, then provide an introduction to the field, its current contribution, and the hope it holds for enhancing fruit production.