Teaching (and learning from) metabolomics: The 2006 PlantMetaNet ETNA Metabolomics Research School

BÖTTCHER C; CENTENO D; FREITAG J; HÖFGEN R; KÖHL K; KOPKA J; KROYMANN J; MATROS A; MOCK HP; NEUMANN S; PFALZ M; VON ROEPENACK-LAHAYE E; SCHAUER N; TRENKAMP S; ZURBRIGGEN M; FERNIE AR

PHYSIOLOGIA PLANTARUM

Año: 2008 vol. 132 p. 136 - 149

0031-9317

Under the auspices of the European Training and Networking Activityprogramme of the European Union, a ‘Metabolic Profiling and Data Analysis’Plant Genomics and Bioinformatics Summer School was hosted in Potsdam,Germany between 20 and 29 September 2006. Sixteen early career researcherswere invited from the European Union partner nations and the so-calleddeveloping nations (Appendix). Lectures from invited leading European researchersprovided an overview of the state of the art of these fields and seededdiscussion regarding major challenges for their future advancement. Hands-onexperience was provided by an example experiment – that of defining themetabolic response of Arabidopsis to treatment of a commercial herbicide ofdefined mode of action. This experiment was performed throughout theduration of the course in order to teach the concepts underlying extraction andmachine handling as well as to provide a rich data set with which the requiredcomputation and statistical skills could be illustrated. Here we review the stateof the field by describing both key lectures given at and practical aspects taughtat the summer school. In addition, we disclose results that were obtained usingthe four distinct technical platforms at the different participating institutes.While the effects of the chosen herbicide are well documented, this study looksat a broader number of metabolites than in previous investigations. Thisallowed, on the one hand, not only to characterise further effects of theherbicide than previously observed but also to detect molecules other than theherbicide that were obviously present in the commercial formulation. Thesedata and the workshop in general are all discussed in the context of the teachingof metabolomics.