Living organisms produce an abundance of small molecular compounds, called metabolites. Although, it is clear that small molecules are central to all aspect of life, their exact functionalities are often unknown. To fill this knowledge gap, and because small molecules act by binding with proteins, Aleksandra Skirycz’s group at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology developed a novel strategy to identify such protein-molecule complexes. An important group of small molecules identified by this novel strategy are 2′,3′-cAMP nucleotides, which are products of RNA degradation and appear to play an important role in the regulation of stress responses.