Molecular Plant Abiotic Stress: Recent Advances and Challenges
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: 31 October 2026 | Viewed by 315
Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Plants are frequently exposed to various abiotic stresses, including drought, salinity, extreme temperatures, and heavy metal toxicity, which significantly affect plant growth, development, and crop productivity worldwide. Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying plant responses to these stresses is essential for developing stress-resilient crops and ensuring global food security.
Recent advances in molecular biology, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics have greatly improved our understanding of how plants perceive and respond to abiotic stress conditions. Key regulatory components such as stress-responsive genes, transcription factors, signaling pathways, and plant hormones play crucial roles in mediating adaptive responses. Gene families, stress-inducible proteins, and regulatory networks have been identified that help plants maintain cellular homeostasis and improve their tolerance to unfavorable environmental conditions.
Furthermore, modern technologies such as CRISPR/Cas genome editing, bioinformatics, and systems biology are providing new opportunities to enhance stress tolerance in crops. However, despite significant progress, many challenges remain in translating laboratory findings into field-level crop improvement. Future research should focus on integrating multi-omics approaches, functional genomics, and breeding strategies to develop climate-resilient plant varieties.
This Special Issue highlights recent progress in the molecular and genetic approaches used to study plant responses to abiotic stresses, and it includes studies on gene identification, functional characterization, regulatory networks, and expression profiling under stress conditions. This collection provides valuable insights into the molecular basis of plant abiotic stress responses and discusses current challenges and future directions for improving plant stress tolerance.
Dr. Quaid Hussain
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- abiotic stress
- plant stress tolerance
- molecular mechanisms
- gene expression
- transcription factors
- stress signaling pathways
- functional genomics
- plant hormones
- omics technologies
- gene family
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