Book excerpt: This volume looks at the latest techniques used by researchers to study various aspects of plant metabolic engineering. The chapters in this book cover topics such as bioinformatics tools used to discover new genes and pathways; heterologous expression of biosynthetic genes in plant and microbial systems; and omics technologies, such as transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and data analysis. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Cutting-edge and comprehensive, Plant Metabolic Engineering: Methods and Protocols is a valuable resource for biologists, chemists, biotechnologists, students, and broad cohorts of researchers who works in the fields of plant metabolism and metabolic engineering.