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Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plant Stress Tolerance: 3rd Edition

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 July 2026 | Viewed by 455

Special Issue Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Plants in the natural environment are constantly challenged by changes in the environment, including abiotic and biotic stresses. Abiotic stresses such as drought, salt, heat, cold, and nutrient deficiencies adversely affect plant growth, development, and productivity. Biotic stresses, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, beneficial and harmful insects, weeds, and cultivated or native plants, are a major focus of agricultural research due to the vast economic losses they inflict on cash crops. Plants have evolved a series of regulatory mechanisms to cope with stress in the process of adapting to abiotic or biotic stress. Studying the regulatory mechanisms of plant stress tolerance to adversity is beneficial in terms of selecting excellent resistant varieties.

This Special Issue aims to provide a platform for research on the physiology and molecular biology of plant stress tolerance. We believe that this Special Issue will be helpful to researchers and to the improvement of plants’ tolerance to stresses in the future. We invite you to submit original papers and reviews containing molecular results.

Prof. Dr. De-Guo Han
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • plant–pathogen interactions
  • biotic and abiotic stress
  • plant innate immunity
  • phytohormones
  • genes

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 2311 KB  
Article
HC-Pro Disrupts miR319–TCP Regulatory Pathways to Induce Sterility in Transgenic Plants
by Taicheng Jin, Weiyan Wang, Jiaxue Yu, Zhuyi Xiao, Yushuo Li, Xu Sun and Liping Yang
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2025, 26(21), 10551; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms262110551 - 30 Oct 2025
Viewed by 303
Abstract
Helper component-proteinase (HC-Pro), encoded by tobacco vein banding mosaic virus (TVBMV), can cause various viral symptoms and even abortion. HC-Pro counteracts host-mediated inhibition by interfering with the accumulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) and small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). However, it is unclear whether the abortion [...] Read more.
Helper component-proteinase (HC-Pro), encoded by tobacco vein banding mosaic virus (TVBMV), can cause various viral symptoms and even abortion. HC-Pro counteracts host-mediated inhibition by interfering with the accumulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) and small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). However, it is unclear whether the abortion phenotype of transgenic plants expressing HC-Pro is related to the abnormal expression of TEOSINTE BRANCHED 1/CYCLOIDEA/PROLIFERATING cell factors (TCPs), which are involved in regulating fertility. In this study, the molecular mechanisms through which HC-Pro causes various sterile phenotypes in plants were investigated. Reverse transcription–quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT–qPCR) and Northern blotting revealed that in HC-Pro transgenic plants, the expression levels of TCP4 and TCP24 significantly increased. The increased expression of TCP4 further upregulated LIPOXYGENASE2 (LOX2), a gene encoding a key enzyme in the synthesis of jasmonic acid (JA) precursors. Further studies confirmed that the aberrant expression of TCP3, TCP4 and TCP24 blocks the elongation of petals and anthers and that the aberrant expression of TCP4 and TCP24 blocks the release of pollen. This study demonstrated that HC-Pro affects the expression levels of the miR319-targeted genes TCP2, TCP3, TCP4, TCP10 and TCP24, thereby affecting the normal development of floral organs and resulting in plant abortion. Both tobacco and Arabidopsis thaliana were used as model systems in this study on virus-mediated fertility, which provides important information for understanding how viral pathogenicity affects the regulation of fertility in crops. Full article
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