Swiss Federal Institute of Technology researchers have completed the first catalog of proteins (the “proteome”) produced by the plant Arabidopsis, capturing proteins created in different plant organs and at various developmental stages.

Earlier in 2008, other labs sequenced the same plant’s epigenome (all the sequences in the genome that may be chemically modified by the addition of a methyl group). Researchers are now working on the plant’s transcriptome (all the RNA molecules produced by the genome), metabolome (all the metabolites produced by plants) and interactome (the network of physical interactions between proteins).

The interplay of these “omic” data sets promises to propel plant biology forwards into an era of quantitative modeling called “systems biology.”