Plant Colours Omics and Biotechnological Advances

Dear Colleagues,

Pigments are responsible for many of the beautiful colors we see in the plant world. Flavonoids, carotenoids, and betalains are the three major plant pigments having important functions: In addition to attracting pollinators visitation and influencing reproductive success in flowering plants, they protect flowers and fruits from UV damage, pests, and pathogens. Furthermore, flower and fruit colors are selected as agronomic characters of interest and associated to health compound content. Horticulturists have long been interested in breeding different varieties of plants with flowers and fruits having bright colors, saturated hues, sweet taste, and high nutritional value. Finally, the secondary metabolites that are strongly influencing these traits have been shown to have health-promoting properties for humans. For these reasons, particular pigments are appreciated not only by horticulturists and breeders but the food and pharmaceutical industries as well, in order to produce food natural colorants and additives and healthcare products.

However, little is known about the regulatory pathways and genes controlling flower and fruit color in different plant species. Determining the diversity and functions of genes involved in biosynthesis of color pigments and their networking would allow a better understanding of plants’ natural adaptation to the environmental changes and create opportunities to select and design new plant varieties and new food and healthcare products. Therefore, in this Special Issue of Plants, all scientific contributions (original research papers, perspectives, hypotheses, opinions, reviews, and modeling approaches and methods) are welcome, focusing on expression analysis and function determination of genes involved in plant color biochemical pathways; on the application of derived knowledge for classical breeding and new plant breeding technologies (NPBTs); and on the application of emerging know-how at agronomical and industrial level.

Dr. Luisa Palmieri
Dr. Stefan Martens
Guest Editors

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