Plant Single-Cell Metabolomics—Challenges and Perspectives
1
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Am Müehlenberg 1, Golm, 14476 Potsdam, Germany
2
Department of Biology, Utah State University, 1435 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322, USA
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21(23), 8987; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21238987
Received: 2 November 2020
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Revised: 24 November 2020
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Accepted: 25 November 2020
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Published: 26 November 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cell-Specificity in Plants)
Omics approaches for investigating biological systems were introduced in the mid-1990s and quickly consolidated to become a fundamental pillar of modern biology. The idea of measuring the whole complement of genes, transcripts, proteins, and metabolites has since become widespread and routinely adopted in the pursuit of an infinity of scientific questions. Incremental improvements over technical aspects such as sampling, sensitivity, cost, and throughput pushed even further the boundaries of what these techniques can achieve. In this context, single-cell genomics and transcriptomics quickly became a well-established tool to answer fundamental questions challenging to assess at a whole tissue level. Following a similar trend as the original development of these techniques, proteomics alternatives for single-cell exploration have become more accessible and reliable, whilst metabolomics lag behind the rest. This review summarizes state-of-the-art technologies for spatially resolved metabolomics analysis, as well as the challenges hindering the achievement of sensu stricto metabolome coverage at the single-cell level. Furthermore, we discuss several essential contributions to understanding plant single-cell metabolism, finishing with our opinion on near-future developments and relevant scientific questions that will hopefully be tackled by incorporating these new exciting technologies.
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
MDPI and ACS Style
de Souza, L.P.; Borghi, M.; Fernie, A. Plant Single-Cell Metabolomics—Challenges and Perspectives. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21, 8987. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21238987
AMA Style
de Souza LP, Borghi M, Fernie A. Plant Single-Cell Metabolomics—Challenges and Perspectives. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2020; 21(23):8987. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21238987
Chicago/Turabian Stylede Souza, Leonardo Perez, Monica Borghi, and Alisdair Fernie. 2020. "Plant Single-Cell Metabolomics—Challenges and Perspectives" International Journal of Molecular Sciences 21, no. 23: 8987. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21238987
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