Hypoxia Stress in Plants—Genes That Help Submersed Plants

Dear Colleagues,

Plants need oxygen for their respiration and metabolism. The ongoing climate change increases the risks for heavy rainfalls and flooding, which lead to a low level of soil oxygen. This results in diminished plant growth rate and yield. In plants subjected to lack of oxygen, hypoxia, the basic metabolism is changed, and several genes, proteins, and metabolites involved in energy-consuming processes are downregulated to help plants to survive the stress. The adaptive mechanisms are regulated by different possible sensors, such as ethylene, but more information on oxygen sensing is needed. The sensing leads to a complex system of reactions, for instance, increase in cytosolic calcium and reactive oxygen species, ROS, as well as increased levels of phosphatidic acid, PA. Investigations show that hypoxia-resistant rice increases its cytosolic calcium elevation much more than hypoxia-sensitive wheat under oxygen deficiency, and that it is a linear relationship between ROS level and hypoxia tolerance at least in some species. Phosphatidic acid is mainly synthesized by phospholipase C (PLC)/diacylglycerol kinase and phospholipase D (PLD) with preference to specific lipid substrates. In human cells, hypoxia activates both PLC and PLD, but less is known about their activation in plant cells. Results showed that in hypoxia-stressed rice, PLC was involved in the signaling mechanism, and in Arabidopsis, the PA level increased under hypoxia. In addition to the stress secondary messengers calcium, ROS, and PA, also nitrogen oxide, NO is supposed to take part in the protective reactions under oxygen deficiency. More information is needed to clarify how plants recognize oxygen, and which genes are involved in the complex signaling system. This knowledge is necessary to produce hypoxia-resistant plants. This Special Issue of Plants will highlight oxygen sensing and the most important genes involved in hypoxia stress and tolerance mechanisms.

Prof. Sylvia Lindberg
Assoc. Prof. Ida Lager
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.

• hypoxia stress
• genes
• oxygen deficiency
• oxygen sensing
• transcription factors
• tolerance mechanisms