Learn from Plant Toxins and Phycotoxins: Impacts and Application

Dear Colleagues,

Climate change and anthropogenic pressure force plants to adapt to critical conditions, which may foster the increased occurrence of natural plant toxins as well as the toxin accumulation by plants due to environmental exposure, specially crops. Likewise, as a consequence of eutrophication and climate change the occurrence of phycotoxins has become increasingly widespread in aquatic ecosystems. Thus it is expected that in near future the safety and quality of feed and food products arising from plant and marine production systems can be affected. Furthermore, these can pose other emerging issues of public health and environmental concern. Plant toxins and phycotoxins are known to exert a variety of toxic effects to humans and other species, triggering several human diseases and compromising the subsistence of environmental ecosystems. On the other hand, as the specific targets of several natural plant toxins and phycotoxins have already been acknowledged, some of them may stand out as promising candidates for biotechnological applications. Nowadays, an attractive range of natural alkaloids, terpenoids, phenolic compounds and polypeptides are being investigated, for instance, by their pharmacological properties and clinical uses.

This Special Issue aims to provide a wide-ranging perspective of the impacts and applications of plant toxins and phycotoxins, by the assessment of its potential risks for public and environmental health and simultaneously by the identification and characterization of novel beneficial-natural compounds, creating resilience in front of the phenomena that currently whole world is facing. In this regard, this Special Issue it is open to review and original research articles that include the following topics:

• Documentation of emergent plant toxins and phycotoxins occurrence due to climatic and anthropogenic pressure;
• Acute and chronic toxic effects and mechanisms of action of plant toxins and phycotoxins in humans and other species;
• Environmental fate of emergent plant toxins and phycotoxins;
• Accumulation of toxins and phycotoxins in food and feed products from plant and marine origin and the risk assessment for public health, food production and environment;
• Traits, nutritional value and quality of food and feed products exposed to plant toxins and phycotoxins;
• Health impact assessment of guideline values proposals regarding plant toxins and phycotoxins in food and feed products;
• Identification and characterization of plant toxins and phycotoxins with biotechnological value (e.g., treatment of human disorders, natural pesticides, food flavours, etc.), as well as the technologies and analytical tools applied (e.g., genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, bioinformatics, etc.).

Prof. Dr. Vitor Manuel Oliveira Vasconcelos
Dr. Alexandre M. Campos
Dr. Marisa Freitas
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Toxicological effects of plant toxins
• Toxicological effects of phycotoxins
• Plant toxins biotechnology
• Phycotoxins biotechnology
• Agricultural Plants
• Phycotoxins accumulation
• Food safety
• Food security
• Risk assessment
• Health impact assessment