Heat Stress Response in Plants

Dear Colleagues,

Global warming is currently one of the major threats for the survival of ecosystems and productivity of crops. Strong temperature increases in the form of, for example, heat waves or long-term mild temperature elevations cause stress which can impair plant growth and developmental processes. Due to their sessile nature, plants engage in a multitude of physiological and molecular responses aiming to minimize stress damages, enhance adaptation capacity, and eventually recover from stress. During the last few years, -omics approaches have described the global changes from RNA to metabolite profiles and point to the existence of multiple levels of regulatory mechanisms that facilitate the tight control of stress response according to the cellular demands. This requires the coordination of temperature-sensing mechanisms and signal transduction pathways to translate environmental cues to molecular responses. As sensitivity to high temperatures depends on the developmental stage of the plant and varies among different cell types, it is no surprise that a global model for stress response has not been established. In turn, there is a need for a high-resolution, multidimensional description of dynamic changes to define the key aspects of thermotolerance from the cellular to the organismic levels. Such information will enhance our understanding on stress response and thermotolerance and is likely to provide tools for the generation of resilient germplasm.

The forthcoming Special Issue aims to collect original research articles and reviews on recent topics in plant heat stress response and thermotolerance, including but not limited to: (a) global -omics approaches to decipher temperature and tissue- or cell-specific alterations at transcriptome, epigenome, proteome, and metabolome, (b) effects of heat stress on transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation and identification of regulators involved such changes, (c) temperature-dependent alterations at proteome level including post-translational modifications, (d) effects of high temperature on chromatin structure and epigenetic phenomena related to stress response and thermotolerance, (e) identification of genetic loci and specific genes associated with thermotolerance, and (f) genetic and biotechnological approaches to improve crop resilience against heat stress. Original research both on model and crop plants is welcome.

Dr. Sotirios Fragkostefanakis
Prof. Dr. Enrico Schleiff
Guest Editors

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