to systems biology -- Natural and artificially induced genetic variability in crop and model plant species for plant systems biology -- Transcriptional profiling approaches to understanding how plants regulate growth and defence: A case study illustrated by analysis of the role of vitamin C -- Case studies for transcriptional profiling -- Regulatory small RNAs in plants -- Differential display and protein quantification -- Protein identification using mass spectrometry: A method overview -- Methods, applications and concepts of metabolite profiling: Primary metabolism -- Methods, applications and concepts of metabolite profiling: Secondary metabolism -- Metabolic flux analysis: Recent advances in carbon metabolism in plants -- Network visualization and network analysis -- Current challenges and approaches for the synergistic use of systems biology data in the scientific community -- Integrated data analysis for genome-wide research -- Network analysis of systems elements. Systems biology represents the integration and application of various technologies that share a common goal of measuring globally the properties of a specific biological sample. These combined data describe and monitor the complex networks that exist within each cell, tissue and organism, and can be used to generate predictive models of the behavior of the system. This volume aims to provide a timely view of the "state of the art" in systems biology. The editors take the opportunity to define systems biology as they and the contributing authors see it, and this will lay the groundwork for future studies. The volume is well-suited to both students and researchers interested in the methods of systems biology. Although the focus is on plant systems biology, the proposed material could be suitably applied to any organism.