Abstract: Plants have the ability to create diverse compounds known as metabolites, these compounds not only mediate plant growth and development, but also play important roles in defense mechanisms of plant. In addition, many metabolites are desirable as nutrition and medicine for humans. Metabolomics enables comprehensive high throughput quantification of metabolites, which is valuable for both phenotype and genes. Recent researches showed that GWAS coupled with metabolome analysis (mGWAS) exhibited great potential to dissect the genetic and biochemical bases of metabolome diversity. This paper reviewed mGWAS as a powerful tool for exploring the basis of physiology and biology in plant productivity and quality, the metabolic and molecular mechanisms of metabolites in regulating plant growth, development and stress responses. It summarized current advance of plant physiology and biology in metabolites and metabolic networks. In addition, the application of mGWAS in crop improvement and its future prospect were also discussed.

Key words: metabolomics, genome-wide association studies, mGWAS, advance

摘要： 植物代谢物是人类食物和营养物质的重要来源。代谢组学是对生物体内代谢物进行定量和定性分析，研究代谢物合成和调控机制的一门新兴学科。基于代谢组的全基因组关联分析（metabolome-based genome-wide association study，mGWAS）是将代谢组数据作为表型，与基因型数据进行关联分析的一种方法。概述了近几年利用mGWAS技术在植物代谢调控网络研究、初生和次生代谢物的形成机制、代谢物在植物生长发育和胁迫应答中的作用，同时综述了mGWAS在代谢物相关候选基因的定位和调控营养、品质相关代谢通路的挖掘，为深入了解植物代谢物合成调控的遗传机制奠定基础。

关键词: 代谢组学, 全基因组关联分析, mGWAS, 进展