Combining metabolomic and transcriptomic approaches to assess and improve crop quality traits

Abstract Plant quality trait improvement has become a global necessity due to the world overpopulation. In particular, producing crop species with enhanced nutrients and health-promoting compounds is one of main aims current breeding programs. However, breeders traditionally focused on characteristics such as yield or pest resistance, while for quality, which largely depends presence accumulation highly valuable metabolites in plant edible parts, was left out complexity metabolome impossibility properly phenotype it. Recent technical advances high throughput metabolomic, transcriptomic genomic platforms have provided efficient approaches identify new genes pathways responsible extremely diverse metabolome. addition, they allow establish correlation between genotype metabolite composition, clarify genetic architecture complex biochemical pathways, secondary plants, many them being human diet. this review, we focus how combination useful tool selection varieties improved nutritional value traits.