Genetics and Epigenetics of Plant Response to Stress

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Genetics, Genomics and Biotechnology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2021) | Viewed by 10964

Special Issue Editors

Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB T1K 3M4, Canada
Interests: genetics and epigenetics; natural products; aging
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB T1K 3M4, Canada
Interests: plant stress biology; genetic and epigenetic regulation of abiotic stress response; transposable elements regulation; transgenerational stress memory; multi-generational stress effects; extremophytes; Salicornia; Arabidopsis; novel stress-responsive genes
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Being sessile organisms, plants are continuously interacting with their changing environment, including abiotic and biotic stresses. Major abiotic stresses include unfavorable environmental conditions such as high salinity, drought, temperature extremes, mechanical stress (e.g., wind), water logging, light intensity, radiation, heavy metals, and mineral deficiencies, among others. Biotic stress is triggered by living organisms, such as bacteria, fungi, parasites, viruses, insects, and weeds. The interaction of plants with their environment results in physiological and biomolecular responses including changes in plant phenotype and development via modulations in gene expressions through genetic and epigenetic modifications. On a short time scale, the major responses occur at the physiological level, while on a long time scale stresses may induce changes in plant development. Finally, plants also respond to their environment in a transgenerational manner, passing the memory of stress to the progeny. For this Special Issue, we invite contributions from leading plant scientists focusing on plant stress response. We encourage the submission of manuscripts addressing fundamental research describing the regulation of plant response on genetic and epigenetic levels. We are also very interested in research describing the application of knowledge of stress response for the generation of stress-resistant crops.

Prof. Dr. Igor Kovalchuk
Dr. Narendra Singh Yadav
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • plant stress response
  • plant adaptation
  • stress memory
  • genetic regulation, epigenetic regulation
  • biotic stress
  • abiotic stress
  • multi-generational stress
  • combined stress
  • stress-responsive genes

Published Papers (2 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

Jump to: Review

20 pages, 4232 KiB  
Article
Genome-Wide Association Mapping Unravels the Genetic Control of Seed Vigor under Low-Temperature Conditions in Rapeseed (Brassica napus L.)
by Tao Luo, Yuting Zhang, Chunni Zhang, Matthew N. Nelson, Jinzhan Yuan, Liang Guo and Zhenghua Xu
Plants 2021, 10(3), 426; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10030426 - 24 Feb 2021
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 2452
Abstract
Low temperature inhibits rapid germination and successful seedling establishment of rapeseed (Brassica napus L.), leading to significant productivity losses. Little is known about the genetic diversity for seed vigor under low-temperature conditions in rapeseed, which motivated our investigation of 13 seed germination- [...] Read more.
Low temperature inhibits rapid germination and successful seedling establishment of rapeseed (Brassica napus L.), leading to significant productivity losses. Little is known about the genetic diversity for seed vigor under low-temperature conditions in rapeseed, which motivated our investigation of 13 seed germination- and emergence-related traits under normal and low-temperature conditions for 442 diverse rapeseed accessions. The stress tolerance index was calculated for each trait based on performance under non-stress and low-temperature stress conditions. Principal component analysis of the low-temperature stress tolerance indices identified five principal components that captured 100% of the seedling response to low temperature. A genome-wide association study using ~8 million SNP (single-nucleotide polymorphism) markers identified from genome resequencing was undertaken to uncover the genetic basis of seed vigor related traits in rapeseed. We detected 22 quantitative trait loci (QTLs) significantly associated with stress tolerance indices regarding seed vigor under low-temperature stress. Scrutiny of the genes in these QTL regions identified 62 candidate genes related to specific stress tolerance indices of seed vigor, and the majority were involved in DNA repair, RNA translation, mitochondrial activation and energy generation, ubiquitination and degradation of protein reserve, antioxidant system, and plant hormone and signal transduction. The high effect variation and haplotype-based effect of these candidate genes were evaluated, and high priority could be given to the candidate genes BnaA03g40290D, BnaA06g07530D, BnaA09g06240D, BnaA09g06250D, and BnaC02g10720D in further study. These findings should be useful for marker-assisted breeding and genomic selection of rapeseed to increase seed vigor under low-temperature stress. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Genetics and Epigenetics of Plant Response to Stress)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Review

Jump to: Research

18 pages, 1383 KiB  
Review
Morphological, Physiological and Molecular Markers for Salt-Stressed Plants
by Aigerim Soltabayeva, Assel Ongaltay, John Okoth Omondi and Sudhakar Srivastava
Plants 2021, 10(2), 243; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10020243 - 27 Jan 2021
Cited by 56 | Viewed by 7736
Abstract
Plant growth and development is adversely affected by different kind of stresses. One of the major abiotic stresses, salinity, causes complex changes in plants by influencing the interactions of genes. The modulated genetic regulation perturbs metabolic balance, which may alter plant’s physiology and [...] Read more.
Plant growth and development is adversely affected by different kind of stresses. One of the major abiotic stresses, salinity, causes complex changes in plants by influencing the interactions of genes. The modulated genetic regulation perturbs metabolic balance, which may alter plant’s physiology and eventually causing yield losses. To improve agricultural output, researchers have concentrated on identification, characterization and selection of salt tolerant varieties and genotypes, although, most of these varieties are less adopted for commercial production. Nowadays, phenotyping plants through Machine learning (deep learning) approaches that analyze the images of plant leaves to predict biotic and abiotic damage on plant leaves have increased. Here, we review salinity stress related markers on molecular, physiological and morphological levels for crops such as maize, rice, ryegrass, tomato, salicornia, wheat and model plant, Arabidopsis. The combined analysis of data from stress markers on different levels together with image data are important for understanding the impact of salt stress on plants. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Genetics and Epigenetics of Plant Response to Stress)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop