From Resistance Genes to Architecture: Mechanistic and Predictive Approaches in Crop Disease Breeding
A special issue of Crops (ISSN 2673-7655).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2026 | Viewed by 150
Special Issue Editors
Interests: plant disease resistance; resistance gene networks; immune signaling architecture; predictive breeding; functional validation; systems-level crop immunity
Interests: crop disease resistance; genetic mapping; mechanistic plant-pathogen interactions; pre-breeding
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Disease resistance breeding has traditionally emphasized the identification and deployment of individual resistance genes or loci. While this approach has delivered important successes, it often falls short in predicting durability and performance across genetic backgrounds and pathogen populations. Increasing evidence indicates that effective and durable resistance emerges from the coordinated action of multiple genes, signaling components, and regulatory layers that together form resistance architectures rather than isolated determinants.
This Special Issue aims to highlight mechanistic, integrative, and predictive studies that move beyond single-gene descriptions toward a systems-level understanding of crop disease resistance. We welcome contributions that combine functional genetics, molecular dissection, multi-omics, and translational breeding approaches to elucidate how resistance components interact, how they can be rationally combined, and how such knowledge can inform breeding strategies. Descriptive studies without functional or conceptual advancement are discouraged.
By bridging mechanistic insight with breeding relevance, this Special Issue seeks to support the development of more predictive and durable disease resistance strategies in crops.
Dr. Hao Hu
Dr. Fengqun Yu
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
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. Crops 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 1200 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
- crop disease resistance
- resistance gene networks
- immune signaling architecture
- functional resistance genes
- predictive breeding
- systems-level immunity
- mechanistic plant–pathogen interactions
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