Metabolite Profiling in Arabidopsis

Metabolite profiling is the multiparallel relative quantification of a mixture of compounds or compound classes using chromatography and universal detection technologies (GC-MS, LC-MS). In this respect it is an extension of classical single-target methods from which it can be distinguished by its broader view on profiling major biochemical events. This broader scope of analysis outweighs the disadvantages by making compromises in method development and the reduced accuracy for specific metabolites. This chapter exemplifies the strategies in metabolite profiling of polar compounds by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). It gives experimental details on the basic steps: harvest, homogenization, extraction, fractionation, concentration, derivatization, data acquisition, raw data processing and result data tranformation.