Differential metabolic and coexpression networks of plant metabolism

Trends Plant Sci. 2015 May;20(5):266-268. doi: 10.1016/j.tplants.2015.02.002. Epub 2015 Mar 16.

Abstract

Recent analyses have demonstrated that plant metabolic networks do not differ in their structural properties and that genes involved in basic metabolic processes show smaller coexpression than genes involved in specialized metabolism. By contrast, our analysis reveals differences in the structure of plant metabolic networks and patterns of coexpression for genes in (non)specialized metabolism. Here we caution that conclusions concerning the organization of plant metabolism based on network-driven analyses strongly depend on the computational approaches used.

Keywords: differential network analysis; gene coexpression; metabolic networks; plant specialized metabolism.

MeSH terms

  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Plant / genetics
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Plant / physiology
  • Gene Regulatory Networks / genetics
  • Gene Regulatory Networks / physiology
  • Plants / genetics
  • Plants / metabolism*