Functional Genomics and Genetic Improvement of Vegetables

Dear Colleagues,

As one of the major food groups, vegetables are rich in vitamins, fiber, minerals, and many other nutrients; thus, they are essential for human health and are also of economic importance. As people’s living standards improve, the development of new vegetable varieties with high-quality and distinctive features is becoming increasingly crucial to meet the diverse demands of consumers. The rapidly changing market is challenging traditional vegetable breeding, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Shifting the breeding program to molecular breeding, however, requires the dissection of the genetic mechanisms underlying the agronomically important traits and the interactions between genetic factors, which usually form a regulatory network.

In recent decades, the rapid development of various sequencing technologies has enabled the deciphering of genome sequences and genetic variations of many vegetable crops. Having benefited from genomic information, the genetic and molecular studies of vegetables have both been greatly accelerated. The introduction of high-throughput approaches and the integration of multi-omics data make it possible to determine gene function, reveal the genetic networks controlling complex traits, and profile the regulation dynamics throughout a biological process from a genome-wide perspective.

In this forthcoming Special Issue, entitled “Functional Genomics and Genetic Improvement of Vegetables,” we welcome research and review paper submissions focusing on the above topics, as well as other topics related to genomic and genetic studies of vegetable crops, through which we hope to advance the understanding of how to promote the genetic improvement of vegetables in the post-genomic era.

Prof. Dr. Feng Cheng
Dr. Kang Zhang
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.