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Abstract

With the rise of high-throughput omics tools and given the importance of maize and its products as food and as bioethanol, its metabolism has been extensively explored. Modern maize is still rich in genetic and phenotypic variation, yielding a wide range of structurally and functionally diverse metabolites. Maize metabolome is also incredibly dynamic in terms of topology and subcellular compartmentalization. In this review, we took a broad basis of studies that covered the recent developments on maize metabolism. Particular attention is given to the methodologies currently being used and the use of metabolomics as a tool to define biosynthetic pathways and to address biological questions. We also, touch upon the use of metabolomics for understanding maize natural variation and evolution with special focus on studies using metabolite-based genome wide association analysis (mGWAS).