Molecular Mechanisms of Plant Adaptation and Stress Tolerance Under Changing Environmental Conditions
A special issue of Current Issues in Molecular Biology (ISSN 1467-3045). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Plant Sciences".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2026 | Viewed by 1219
Special Issue Editor
2. College of Education Sciences (CES), The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Guangzhou 511453, China
Interests: plant genetics and genomics; molecular plant physiology; plant breeding and genetics; synthetic biology; abiotic stress; secondary metabolism; plant growth and development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Rapid environmental change is reshaping the way plants grow, develop, and survive. Extreme temperatures, prolonged droughts, salinity intrusion, flooding, nutrient imbalances, shifting photoperiods, and emerging pathogens now occur more frequently and often in combination. Elevated CO2 (eCO2) adds another layer: it can enhance photosynthesis and biomass, yet rewire carbon–nitrogen balance, stomatal behavior, secondary metabolism, and defense mechanisms. eCO2 rarely acts alone; its effects modulate and are modulated by water deficit, heat, ozone, and nutrient limitations, yielding outcomes that are genotype-, tissue-, and stage-specific. These stresses trigger complex and sometimes antagonistic molecular responses, challenging the resilience of even the most adaptable species.
Despite extensive progress in plant genomics, physiology, and breeding, we still lack an integrated understanding of how plants perceive, prioritize, and coordinate defense and adaptation across diverse and fluctuating environmental conditions. This Special Issue seeks contributions that move beyond single-factor analyses to unravel the molecular circuitry, signaling crosstalk, and physiological adjustments underpinning tolerance to combined and sequential stresses. By integrating molecular biology, systems-level omics, physiology, and predictive modeling studies, we aim to bridge the gap between controlled experiments and real-world agricultural and ecological contexts.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Decoding integrators and crosstalk among hormone, redox, sugar, TOR/SnRK1, and calcium signaling under multi-stress conditions.
- Understanding carbon–nitrogen reallocation and metabolic remodeling (primary, secondary, and structural) that govern tolerance vs. yield.
- Disentangling root–soil–microbiome mechanisms, including rhizosphere signaling and nutrient acquisition under eCO2 and abiotic stress.
- Mapping spatial and temporal heterogeneity via single-cell/spatial omics, real-time imaging, and high-throughput phenotyping.
- Leveraging natural variation, pangenomes, epigenetic memory, and genome editing to identify deployable tolerance traits.
- Mechanism-anchored engineering (CRISPR/prime editing, synthetic circuits) and predictive modeling/AI that generalize from growth chambers to fields.
Original research, short communications, methods/resources, data papers, and concise mechanistic reviews that integrate multi-omics, physiology, and modeling are encouraged. Studies on crops, trees, and model plants are all in scope, especially those validating targets across environments.
Dr. Naveed Ahmad
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- elevated CO2
- drought–heat–salinity
- carbon–nitrogen balance
- TOR/SnRK1
- hormone crosstalk
- redox signaling
- microbiome
- single-cell/spatial omics
- phenomics
- genome editing
- predictive breeding
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