Priming-Mediated Abiotic Stress and Cross-Stress Tolerance in Crop Plants: Physiological, Biochemical and Molecular Interventions

Dear Colleagues,

Plants growing under field conditions are constantly exposed, either sequentially or simultaneously, to more than one abiotic or biotic stress factors. Plants have developed unique strategies to respond to ever-changing environmental conditions, which enable them to perceive changes in their surroundings and adjust their metabolic systems to maintain homeostasis accordingly. Recently, priming-mediated stress and cross-stress tolerance (i.e., greater tolerance to a second stronger stress after exposure to a different or similar mild primary stress) have attracted considerable interest from the scientific community as a potential means of stress management and also for producing stress-resilient crops in order to aid with sustaining global food security. Since then, many studies dealing with a range of crop species under different conditions have focused on priming-mediated stress and cross-stress tolerance in crop plants, and recent results have indicated that plants have a “memory” process where a past stress exposure enables them to be better prepared for exposure to stress in the future. Because it is known that the induction of cross-tolerance in crop plants often involves common factors, an in-depth understanding of the biochemical and molecular mechanisms associated with the development of cross-stress tolerance in plants is still lacking. Hence, there is an urgent need to improve our understanding of the complex mechanisms involved in priming-mediated stress and cross-stress tolerance in order to help develop modern varieties of crop plants that are more resilient to environmental stress. We invite original and review articles on the latest understanding of the physiological, biochemical, and molecular basis of priming-mediated stress tolerance and cross-stress tolerance in crop plants. This would help researchers to devise strategies for enhancing crop productivity under stressful conditions. It would have further importance for improved utilization of natural resources in advanced plant breeding and genetic engineering, contributing to future food security.

Topics appropriate to this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Salt priming and abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants
• Cold priming and abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants
• Heat priming and abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants
• Reactive oxygen species (ROS) priming and abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants
• Chemical priming and abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants
• Comparative effectiveness of chemical priming in abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants
• ROS metabolism, endogenous protective chemicals, and abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants
• Proteomic analysis, chemical priming, and abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants
• Chemical priming and stress responsive gene expression
• Breeding for endogenous chemical compounds and abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants
• Signaling roles of chemical compounds and cross stress tolerance in crop plants
• Transgenic plants, endogenous chemical biosynthetic genes, and stress tolerance in crop plants

Prof. Dr. Mohammad Anwar Hossain
Prof. Dr. Mohammad Golam Mostofa
Prof. Dr. Fulai Liu
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.