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Unraveling Sugar Signaling: Insights into Plant Stress Responses
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Unraveling Sugar Signaling: Insights into Plant Stress Responses

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Plant Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 July 2025 | Viewed by 3266

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Claudia Uhde-Stone

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Biological Sciences, California State University, East Bay, Hayward, CA 94542, USA
Interests: plant adaptations to nutrient stress; nutrient deficiency signaling; crosstalk
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Plants have evolved intricate sugar signaling networks to coordinate sugar status with stress responses. Certain sugars, such as glucose, fructose, trehalose, and sucrose, act not only as metabolites but also as plant signaling molecules. Unraveling sugar signaling pathways is of great interest to the scientific community to better understand the integration of environmental stress responses in crops.

While great progress has been made to unravel sugar signaling pathways, many questions remain. Glucose signaling in plants is similar to pathways in yeast and mammals and thus has long been accepted, while sucrose signaling, though suggested decades ago, is only slowly gaining acceptance.

We welcome original research articles, reviews, and perspectives that address the following topics:

  • Sugar sensing and signal transduction pathways in response to stress;
  • Sugar signaling at the crossroads of responses to biotic and abiotic stresses;
  • Crosstalk of sugar signaling and other signaling pathways;
  • The dual role of sugars as metabolites and signals.

Prof. Dr. Claudia Uhde-Stone
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • sugar signaling
  • glucose signaling
  • sucrose signaling
  • signal transduction pathways
  • plant response to stress
  • biotic stress
  • abiotic stress
  • plant physiology

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 5121 KiB  
Article
Exogenous 24-Epibrassinolide Improves Low-Temperature Tolerance of Maize Seedlings by Influencing Sugar Signaling and Metabolism
by Siqi Sun, Xiaoqiang Zhao, Zhenzhen Shi, Fuqiang He, Guoxiang Qi, Xin Li, Yining Niu and Wenqi Zhou
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2025, 26(2), 585; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms26020585 - 11 Jan 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1060
Abstract
Low-temperature (LT) stress seriously affects the distribution, seedling survival, and grain yield of maize. At the seedling emergence stage, maize’s coleoptile is one of the most sensitive organs in sensing LT signaling and, in general, it can envelop young leaves to protect them [...] Read more.
Low-temperature (LT) stress seriously affects the distribution, seedling survival, and grain yield of maize. At the seedling emergence stage, maize’s coleoptile is one of the most sensitive organs in sensing LT signaling and, in general, it can envelop young leaves to protect them from LT damage. In addition, brassinolides (BRs) have been shown to enhance LT tolerance from various species, but the effects of BRs on coleoptiles in maize seedlings under LT stress are unclear. Therefore, in this study, the pre-cultured coleoptiles of Zheng58 seedlings were treated with or without 2.0 μM 24-epibrassinolide (EBR) at 25 °C and 10 °C environments for five days to analyze their physiological and transcriptomic changes. Physiological analysis showed that a 10°C LT stress increased the content of glucose (0.43 mg g−1 FW), sucrose (0.45 mg g−1 FW), and starch (0.76 mg g−1 FW) of Zheng58 coleoptiles compared to a 25°C environment. After the coleoptiles were exposed to a 2.0 μM EBR application under 10°C temperature for five days, the contents of these three sugars continued to increase, and reached 2.68 mg g−1 FW, 4.64 mg g−1 FW, and 9.27 mg g−1 FW, respectively, indicating that sugar signaling and metabolism played key roles in regulating LT tolerance in the coleoptiles of maize seedlings. Meanwhile, a transcriptome analysis showed that 84 and 15 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were enriched in the sucrose and starch metabolism and photosynthesis pathways, respectively, and multiple DEGs involved in these pathways were significantly up-regulated under LT stress and EBR stimulation. Further analysis speculated that the four DEGs responsible for sucrose-phosphate synthetase (SPS, i.e., Zm00001d048979, probable sucrose-phosphate synthase 5 and Zm00001d012036, sucrose-phosphate synthase 1), sucrose synthase (SUS, Zm00001d029091, sucrose synthase 2 and Zm00001d029087, sucrose synthase 4) were crucial nodes that could potentially link photosynthesis and other unknown pathways to form the complex interaction networks of maize LT tolerance. In conclusion, our findings provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms of exogenous EBR in enhancing LT tolerance of maize seedlings and identified potential candidate genes to be used for LT tolerance breeding in maize. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unraveling Sugar Signaling: Insights into Plant Stress Responses)
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19 pages, 5056 KiB  
Article
Transcriptomics Provide Insights into Early Responses to Sucrose Signaling in Lupinus albus, a Model Plant for Adaptations to Phosphorus and Iron Deficiency
by Tahmina Shammi, Yishen Lee, Jayati Trivedi, Dakota Sierras, Aniqua Mansoor, Jason M. Maxwell, Matthew Williamson, Mark McMillan, Indrani Chakravarty and Claudia Uhde-Stone
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2024, 25(14), 7692; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms25147692 - 13 Jul 2024
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1709
Abstract
Phosphorus (P) and iron (Fe) deficiency are major limiting factors for plant productivity worldwide. White lupin (Lupinus albus L.) has become a model plant for understanding plant adaptations to P and Fe deficiency, because of its ability to form cluster roots, bottle-brush-like [...] Read more.
Phosphorus (P) and iron (Fe) deficiency are major limiting factors for plant productivity worldwide. White lupin (Lupinus albus L.) has become a model plant for understanding plant adaptations to P and Fe deficiency, because of its ability to form cluster roots, bottle-brush-like root structures play an important role in the uptake of P and Fe from soil. However, little is known about the signaling pathways involved in sensing and responding to P and Fe deficiency. Sucrose, sent in increased concentrations from the shoot to the root, has been identified as a long-distance signal of both P and Fe deficiency. To unravel the responses to sucrose as a signal, we performed Oxford Nanopore cDNA sequencing of white lupin roots treated with sucrose for 10, 15, or 20 min compared to untreated controls. We identified a set of 17 genes, including 2 bHLH transcription factors, that were up-regulated at all three time points of sucrose treatment. GO (gene ontology) analysis revealed enrichment of auxin and gibberellin responses as early as 10 min after sucrose addition, as well as the emerging of ethylene responses at 20 min of sucrose treatment, indicating a sequential involvement of these hormones in plant responses to sucrose. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unraveling Sugar Signaling: Insights into Plant Stress Responses)
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