Advances in Plant Metabolomics and Metabolic Engineering for Crop Improvement
A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Agricultural Biosystem and Biological Engineering".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 July 2026 | Viewed by 45
Special Issue Editors
Interests: brassinosteroid; phosphorylation; feedback loop; grain length; protein
Interests: rice genetic and breeding; crop bioinformatics; rice yield; grain size
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: plant metabolomics; metabolic engineering
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Global food security faces unprecedented challenges from a rapidly expanding population, climate change, and the degradation of arable land. While traditional breeding has been the cornerstone of crop improvement, meeting future demands requires innovative strategies to precisely and efficiently enhance complex traits such as yield, nutritional quality, and resilience to abiotic and biotic stresses.
The advent of high-throughput technologies has revolutionized our ability to study biological systems. Plant metabolomics, which provides a comprehensive snapshot of the biochemical phenotype (the metabolome), is pivotal for understanding the complex molecular mechanisms underlying agronomically important traits. When integrated with other omics data and coupled with metabolic engineering—the targeted modification of biochemical pathways—these approaches offer a powerful toolkit for the deliberate design of next-generation crops.
This Special Issue, "Advances in Plant Metabolomics and Metabolic Engineering for Crop Improvement," aims to highlight cutting-edge research and reviews that explore the application of these technologies. We seek contributions that demonstrate how metabolomics can uncover novel biomarkers for stress tolerance, identify key metabolic pathways associated with nutritional enhancement, and guide metabolic engineering efforts. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the development of novel analytical and computational methods in metabolomics, the integration of multi-omics data for systems biology, and successful case studies of metabolic engineering for the improvement of food, feed, and bioenergy crops.
We welcome the submission of original research articles, reviews, mini-reviews, and perspectives that address these challenges and showcase the transformative potential of metabolomics and metabolic engineering in shaping the future of agriculture.
Dr. Xiuying Gao
Prof. Dr. Ji Huang
Dr. Jinping Cheng
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
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. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2600 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.
Keywords
- plant metabolomics
- metabolic engineering
- multi-omics integration
- systems biology
- biomarkers for stress tolerance
- nutritional enhancement
- crop improvement
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