Quantitative Profiling of the Chemical Diversity in the Plant Kingdom

There are tens of thousands of specialized metabolites in the Plant Kingdom, such as polyphenols, alkaloids, glucosinolates, cyanogenic glycosides and terpenes. Even though it is shown that these metabolites have many types of relevant bioactivities, the actual chemical diversity of specialized metabolites in the Plant Kingdom is still uncharted. Our knowledge of the collection of the Botanical Garden of the University of Turku demonstrates this well; over half of the species are chemically completely unknown, let alone that the chemical compositions of individual species would be totally determined. Powerful tools are needed to be able to create a comprehensive picture of the chemical diversity in plants which is on the other hand constantly decreased by loss of biodiversity.