Abiotic Stress in Plants: Present and Future

A special issue of Genes (ISSN 2073-4425). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Genetics and Genomics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 April 2023) | Viewed by 14251

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Biotechnology, Sher-E-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Jammu, Jammu 180009, India
Interests: plant physiology; phytochemistry; functional genomics; proteomics

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Guest Editor
College of Horticulture, Banda University of Agriculture and Technology, Banda 210001, UP, India
Interests: heat stress; genomics; trancriptomics

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Guest Editor
Division of Integrated Farming System, ICAR-Central Arid Zone Research Institute, Jodhpur 342003, India
Interests: protected cultivation; rootstocks/ grafting; abiotic stress physiology; climate change; deficit irrigation; stress protectants; plant-water relation; sustainable horticulture
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Today’s agriculture is facing great challenges to ensure a sufficient food supply without compromising the quality of the grains. An unfavorable climate not only causes changes in agro-ecological conditions but tortuously distresses growth and distribution of incomes. Adverse climatic factors, such as extreme temperature, drought, salinity, heavy metals, and oxidative stresses are the main causes of low crop productivity and sustainability. Abiotic stress generated reactive oxygen species (ROS) playing the dual role of signaling and regulating basic cellular metabolism. Much progress has been made in the identification and characterization of genes/proteins/metabolites that allow plants to tolerate abiotic stresses. A better understanding of primary and secondary metabolites, polyphenols and micronutrients and other compatible solutes collectively pave the way for improving plant stress tolerance. The Special Issue of the Journal entitled “Abiotic Stress in Plants: Present and Future” mainly focus on how plants adapt to abiotic stress and various biotechnological and molecular approaches for improving the stress tolerance in crop plants to mitigating the effect of global climate change. This issue presents a holistic view of the general principles of stress tolerance, signal transduction and regulation of gene expression, heavy metal toxicity, hormones, metabolites, and nutrient and halophytes in defense mechanisms. This issue is dedicated to climate smart crops through plant breeding, genetic engineering and agronomic approaches. This Special Issue will integrate molecular details with overall plant adaptation and physiology. This Special Issue serves as a complete package on the basics, applications and management for abiotic stress tolerance in plants.

Dr. Gynendra Kumar Rai
Dr. Ashutosh Rai
Dr. Pradeep Kumar
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • plants adaptation
  • plant signaling
  • abiotic stress
  • antioxidant defense mechanism
  • genetic engineering
  • gene expression
  • signal transduction and regulation
  • metabolites
  • phytochemistry
  • heavy metal toxicity

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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13 pages, 2953 KiB  
Article
Integration of Phosphoproteomics and Transcriptome Studies Reveals ABA Signaling Pathways Regulate UV-B Tolerance in Rhododendron chrysanthum Leaves
by Qi Sun, Xiangru Zhou, Liping Yang, Hongwei Xu and Xiaofu Zhou
Genes 2023, 14(6), 1153; https://doi.org/10.3390/genes14061153 - 25 May 2023
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1651
Abstract
The influence of UV-B stress on the growth, development, and metabolism of alpine plants, such as the damage to DNA macromolecules, the decline in photosynthetic rate, and changes in growth, development, and morphology cannot be ignored. As an endogenous signal molecule, ABA demonstrates [...] Read more.
The influence of UV-B stress on the growth, development, and metabolism of alpine plants, such as the damage to DNA macromolecules, the decline in photosynthetic rate, and changes in growth, development, and morphology cannot be ignored. As an endogenous signal molecule, ABA demonstrates a wide range of responses to UV-B radiation, low temperature, drought, and other stresses. The typical effect of ABA on leaves is to reduce the loss of transpiration by closing the stomata, which helps plants resist abiotic and biological stress. The Changbai Mountains have a harsh environment, with low temperatures and thin air, so Rhododendron chrysanthum (R. chrysanthum) seedlings growing in the Changbai Mountains can be an important research object. In this study, a combination of physiological, phosphorylated proteomic, and transcriptomic approaches was used to investigate the molecular mechanisms by which abiotic stress leads to the phosphorylation of proteins in the ABA signaling pathway, and thereby mitigates UV-B radiation to R. chrysanthum. The experimental results show that a total of 12,289 differentially expressed genes and 109 differentially phosphorylated proteins were detected after UV-B stress in R. chrysanthum, mainly concentrated in plant hormone signaling pathways. Plants were treated with ABA prior to exposure to UV-B stress, and the results showed that ABA mitigated stomatal changes in plants, thus confirming the key role of endogenous ABA in plant adaptation to UV-B. We present a model that suggests a multifaceted R. chrysanthum response to UV-B stress, providing a theoretical basis for further elaboration of the mechanism of ABA signal transduction regulating stomata to resist UV-B radiation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Abiotic Stress in Plants: Present and Future)
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15 pages, 2873 KiB  
Article
Adaptive Response and Transcriptomic Analysis of Flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) Seedlings to Salt Stress
by Yuandong Li, Jiao Chen, Xiao Li, Haixia Jiang, Dongliang Guo, Fang Xie, Zeyang Zhang and Liqiong Xie
Genes 2022, 13(10), 1904; https://doi.org/10.3390/genes13101904 - 20 Oct 2022
Viewed by 2113
Abstract
Soil salinity constrains agricultural development in arid regions. Flax is an economically important crop in many countries, and screening or breeding salinity-resistant flax cultivars is necessary. Based on the previous screening of flaxseed cultivars C71 (salt-sensitive) and C116 (salt-tolerant) as test materials, flax [...] Read more.
Soil salinity constrains agricultural development in arid regions. Flax is an economically important crop in many countries, and screening or breeding salinity-resistant flax cultivars is necessary. Based on the previous screening of flaxseed cultivars C71 (salt-sensitive) and C116 (salt-tolerant) as test materials, flax seedlings stressed with different concentrations of NaCl (0, 100, 150, 200, and 250 mmol/L) for 21 days were used to investigate the effects of salt stress on the growth characteristics, osmotic regulators, and antioxidant capacity of these flax seedlings and to reveal the adaptive responses of flax seedlings to salt stress. The results showed that plant height and root length of flax were inhibited, with C116 showing lower growth than C71. The concentrations of osmotic adjustment substances such as soluble sugars, soluble proteins, and proline were higher in the resistant material, C116, than in the sensitive material, C71, under different concentrations of salt stress. Consistently, C116 showed a better rapid scavenging ability for reactive oxygen species (ROS) and maintained higher activities of antioxidant enzymes to balance salt injury stress by inhibiting growth under salt stress. A transcriptome analysis of flax revealed that genes related to defense and senescence were significantly upregulated, and genes related to the growth and development processes were significantly downregulated under salt stress. Our results indicated that one of the important adaptations to tolerance to high salt stress is complex physiological remediation by rapidly promoting transcriptional regulation in flax. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Abiotic Stress in Plants: Present and Future)
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Review

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36 pages, 4543 KiB  
Review
Multi-Omics Pipeline and Omics-Integration Approach to Decipher Plant’s Abiotic Stress Tolerance Responses
by Rajib Roychowdhury, Soumya Prakash Das, Amber Gupta, Parul Parihar, Kottakota Chandrasekhar, Umakanta Sarker, Ajay Kumar, Devade Pandurang Ramrao and Chinta Sudhakar
Genes 2023, 14(6), 1281; https://doi.org/10.3390/genes14061281 - 16 Jun 2023
Cited by 45 | Viewed by 7752
Abstract
The present day’s ongoing global warming and climate change adversely affect plants through imposing environmental (abiotic) stresses and disease pressure. The major abiotic factors such as drought, heat, cold, salinity, etc., hamper a plant’s innate growth and development, resulting in reduced yield and [...] Read more.
The present day’s ongoing global warming and climate change adversely affect plants through imposing environmental (abiotic) stresses and disease pressure. The major abiotic factors such as drought, heat, cold, salinity, etc., hamper a plant’s innate growth and development, resulting in reduced yield and quality, with the possibility of undesired traits. In the 21st century, the advent of high-throughput sequencing tools, state-of-the-art biotechnological techniques and bioinformatic analyzing pipelines led to the easy characterization of plant traits for abiotic stress response and tolerance mechanisms by applying the ‘omics’ toolbox. Panomics pipeline including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, epigenomics, proteogenomics, interactomics, ionomics, phenomics, etc., have become very handy nowadays. This is important to produce climate-smart future crops with a proper understanding of the molecular mechanisms of abiotic stress responses by the plant’s genes, transcripts, proteins, epigenome, cellular metabolic circuits and resultant phenotype. Instead of mono-omics, two or more (hence ‘multi-omics’) integrated-omics approaches can decipher the plant’s abiotic stress tolerance response very well. Multi-omics-characterized plants can be used as potent genetic resources to incorporate into the future breeding program. For the practical utility of crop improvement, multi-omics approaches for particular abiotic stress tolerance can be combined with genome-assisted breeding (GAB) by being pyramided with improved crop yield, food quality and associated agronomic traits and can open a new era of omics-assisted breeding. Thus, multi-omics pipelines together are able to decipher molecular processes, biomarkers, targets for genetic engineering, regulatory networks and precision agriculture solutions for a crop’s variable abiotic stress tolerance to ensure food security under changing environmental circumstances. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Abiotic Stress in Plants: Present and Future)
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Other

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14 pages, 1665 KiB  
Essay
Selection and Validation of Reference Genes in Different Tissues of Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L.) under Different Abiotic Stresses
by Zhipeng Zhu, Jianxiang Yu, Xinhui Tang, Aisheng Xiong and Miao Sun
Genes 2023, 14(3), 603; https://doi.org/10.3390/genes14030603 - 27 Feb 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1731
Abstract
Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L.) is a particular vegetable with both edible and medicinal values. However, the expression pattern of the okra reference genes in response to abiotic stress has not been explored. In the present study, 18 potential reference genes were selected [...] Read more.
Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L.) is a particular vegetable with both edible and medicinal values. However, the expression pattern of the okra reference genes in response to abiotic stress has not been explored. In the present study, 18 potential reference genes were selected from okra in various tissues and abiotic stress conditions, and their expression levels were detected by Real-Time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). Their expression stabilities were calculated by four algorithms (geNorm, NormFinder, BestKeeper, and RefFinder). Under cold stress, the most stable genes included GAPC1 and CYP (leaf), CYP and ACT7 (root), HIS6 and GAPC1 (stem), and HIS6 and 60s (different tissues). Under salt stress, EF-1α and UBQ (leaf), EF-1α and UBQ (root), TUA4 and Eif (stem), and HIS6 and Eif (different tissues) were the most stable genes. Under drought stress, UBQ and Eif in the leaf, HIS6 and Eif in the root, TUA4 and HIS6 in the stem, and UBQ and Eif in different tissues were most stably expressed in okra. In addition, complete sequencing results by RefFinder showed that HIS6 and ACT7 in the leaf, HIS6 and Eif in the root, UBC5B and 60s in the stem, and HIS6 and Eif in different tissues, were most the suitable reference genes for okra. Furthermore, AeMYB1R1 transcription factor was used to verify the reliability of RT-qPCR values. In summary, this study was carried out to demonstrate the potential reference genes of okra under abiotic stress, aiming to provide a molecular basis for functional gene analysis and regulatory mechanism research of okra. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Abiotic Stress in Plants: Present and Future)
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