Molecular and Physiological Regulation of Secondary Metabolism in Vegetables (3rd Edition)

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Physiology and Metabolism".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 December 2025 | Viewed by 845

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
College of Horticulture, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China
Interests: brassica vegetables; Chinese kale; mustard; carotenoids; glucosinolate; antioxidants; nutritional quality; postharvest
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Guest Editor
Department of Horticulture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Interests: brassica vegetables; postharvest quality; glucosinolates; regulation; plant hormones
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Vegetables are closely related to daily human life. They not only add decoration to food with their colorful appearance but also have positive effects on health with their comprehensive and rich nutrition, especially bioactive compounds from secondary metabolism. Vegetables contain a variety of secondary metabolites, including carotenoids, flavonoids, glucosinolates, and anthocyanins, among others. These secondary metabolites are widely involved in growth and development, resistance against biotic and abiotic stresses, quality characteristics and formation, and other physiological processes of vegetable crops. Likewise, they can be influenced by intrinsic genetic factors, extrinsic environmental factors, and postharvest handling. In model plants, significant progress has been made in understanding the biosynthesis, degradation, and regulation of secondary metabolites; however, major gaps regarding vegetable crops remain in the literature. Today, the genomic sequence of an increasing number of vegetable crops has been explored, facilitating the elucidation of the regulatory mechanisms of secondary metabolites in vegetable crops together with other technologies, such as omics (transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, epigenomics, etc.), gene-editing technologies (ZFNs, TALENs, CRISPR, etc.), and bioinformatics. Therefore, in this Special Issue, we invite the submission of articles (original research papers, perspectives, hypotheses, opinions, reviews, and methods) that focus on the regulatory mechanisms of secondary metabolism and their role in vegetable growth and development, as well as responses to environmental stresses, quality characteristics and changes at the transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic, and epigenetic levels.

Prof. Dr. Bo Sun
Dr. Huiying Miao
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • secondary metabolites
  • biosynthesis, degradation, and regulation
  • growth and development
  • biotic and abiotic stress responses
  • quality characteristics
  • postharvest
  • gene function
  • omics studies
  • gene editing
  • bioinformatics

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 5501 KB  
Article
Artificial Domestication Enhances Bioactive Profiles and Antioxidant Capacity in Two Wild Asteraceae Plants
by Aihong Zheng, Hanfeng Gao, Zhixin Wei, Dongyang Sun, Shuyu Han, Xuling Ren, Xuhua Wan, Yonggang Cao, Keshun Wu and Bo Sun
Plants 2025, 14(23), 3662; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants14233662 - 1 Dec 2025
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Abstract
Taraxacum mongolicum Hand.-Mazz. and Sonchus oleraceus L. are perennial herbaceous species with strong antioxidant capacities; however, these species have not been widely utilized as medicinal materials because their natural populations are limited, and manual harvesting is labor-intensive. In this study, we compared the [...] Read more.
Taraxacum mongolicum Hand.-Mazz. and Sonchus oleraceus L. are perennial herbaceous species with strong antioxidant capacities; however, these species have not been widely utilized as medicinal materials because their natural populations are limited, and manual harvesting is labor-intensive. In this study, we compared the yield, bioactive components (in leaves and roots), and antioxidant capacity of domesticated and wild populations of both species. Domesticated cultivation significantly increased the contents of ascorbic acid, total phenols, and flavonoids in T. mongolicum leaves, total phenols in T. mongolicum roots, and total phenols and flavonoids in S. oleraceus leaves. Domestication markedly enhanced antioxidant capacity (with the exception of S. oleraceus roots) and the free radical scavenging capacity in the leaves and roots of both wild vegetable species (with the exception of S. oleraceus roots). Domesticated cultivation also substantially improved yield, with T. mongolicum yield increasing by 12,850 kg/ha (fresh weight) and S. oleraceus yield increasing by 18,600 kg/ha (fresh weight). Correlation analysis showed that the free radical scavenging capacity of leaves in both species was significantly negatively correlated with the soluble sugar content, whereas the soluble sugar content in roots was significantly positively correlated with the soluble protein content. Overall, our findings will aid further studies of bioactive substances and antioxidant-related genes in T. mongolicum and S. oleraceus. Full article
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17 pages, 3929 KB  
Article
Melatonin Enhances Growth and Glucosinolate-Associated Nutritional Quality of Mustard Sprouts Under Moderate Salinity Stress
by Xiaoling Zhao, Xuena Yu, Hongmei Di, Aolian Zhou, Zhongrong Guan, Pingping Shi, Sen Wang and Bo Sun
Plants 2025, 14(23), 3553; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants14233553 - 21 Nov 2025
Viewed by 312
Abstract
Salt stress profoundly affects plant growth and metabolism, whereas melatonin has emerged as an effective regulator that modulates plant responses to abiotic stress. In this study, we investigated the interactive effects between salinity (80 and 160 mM NaCl) and exogenous melatonin (100 μM) [...] Read more.
Salt stress profoundly affects plant growth and metabolism, whereas melatonin has emerged as an effective regulator that modulates plant responses to abiotic stress. In this study, we investigated the interactive effects between salinity (80 and 160 mM NaCl) and exogenous melatonin (100 μM) on the growth, metabolism, and antioxidant capacity of mustard (Brassica juncea) sprouts. The results revealed a synergistic interaction in which melatonin effectively mitigated the inhibitory effects of salinity and optimized the balance between growth and defense metabolism. Under moderate salinity, the combined treatment (MN1) significantly enhanced biomass accumulation, soluble sugars, proteins, and glucosinolate retention, while markedly increasing ascorbic acid, total phenolics, and antioxidant capacity. Principal component and membership function analyses confirmed that the melatonin × salinity interaction improved overall physiological performance more effectively than either factor alone. These results demonstrate that melatonin effectively enhances stress resilience and nutritional quality in mustard sprouts, providing a promising strategy for improving the functional value of sprouting vegetables under salinity conditions. Full article
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