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Plant Stress Responses: Molecular Genetics and Enzyme Regulation
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Plant Stress Responses: Molecular Genetics and Enzyme Regulation

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2026 | Viewed by 1162

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Hongjian Wan

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. State Key Laboratory for Managing Biotic and Chemical Threats to the Quality and Safety of Agro-Products, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou 310021, China
2. Institute of Vegetables, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou 310021, China
Interests: abiotic/biotic stresses; gene/gene family evolution; metabolism of crop quality under adverse conditions
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Plants are continuously exposed to a wide array of environmental stresses, including drought, salinity, temperature extremes, nutrient deficiencies, and attacks from pathogens and pests. These stress factors threaten global agricultural productivity and food security. To survive and adapt, plants have evolved intricate stress response mechanisms that involve precise regulation at the molecular, genetic, and enzymatic levels.

This Special Issue aims to provide a comprehensive platform for advancing our understanding of how plants perceive and respond to environmental stresses through molecular genetics and enzyme regulation. We welcome contributions that explore the identification and functional analysis of stress-responsive genes, transcription factors, signal transduction pathways, and the role of enzymes in modulating metabolic and physiological responses under stress.

Special emphasis will be given to studies that elucidate regulatory networks involved in hormonal signaling, reactive oxygen species (ROS) homeostasis, and epigenetic modifications. We also encourage research that integrates multi-omics technologies—genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics—with the aim of unravelling complex stress adaptation strategies.

Through this Special Issue, we seek to foster the development of novel molecular tools and strategies for breeding stress-resilient crops, thereby contributing to sustainable agriculture in the face of climate change. Researchers working on model and non-model plants are invited to submit original research articles and reviews that align with the scope of this Issue.

Dr. Hongjian Wan
Guest Editor

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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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 responses
  • molecular genetics
  • enzyme regulation
  • abiotic and biotic stresses
  • transcription factors
  • signal transduction
  • hormonal crosstalk
  • reactive oxygen species (ROS)
  • gene expression regulation
  • crop stress tolerance
  • epigenetic modifications

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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23 pages, 3658 KB  
Article
Multi-Omics Reveals Domestication-Associated Shifts in Phosphorus Adaptation Strategies in Tomato
by Shuai Yuan, Yujie Yang, Yiyong Zhu, Xianqing Jia and Jiahong Yu
Plants 2026, 15(5), 820; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants15050820 - 7 Mar 2026
Viewed by 362
Abstract
Phosphorus (P) limitation is a major selective pressure in plant evolution and a persistent constraint on modern crop production. However, how domestication has reshaped P adaptation strategies remains poorly understood. Here, we compared wild (Solanum pimpinellifolium) and cultivated (Solanum lycopersicum [...] Read more.
Phosphorus (P) limitation is a major selective pressure in plant evolution and a persistent constraint on modern crop production. However, how domestication has reshaped P adaptation strategies remains poorly understood. Here, we compared wild (Solanum pimpinellifolium) and cultivated (Solanum lycopersicum) tomatoes under contrasting P conditions using integrated physiological, ionomic, and transcriptomic analyses. Our findings reveal distinct P strategies between the examined genotypes. Cultivated tomatoes achieved higher biomass under sufficient P supply but were highly sensitive to P deficiency, responding through acquisition-driven phenotypic plasticity characterized by extensive root remodeling and enhanced external P mobilization. In contrast, wild accessions maintained growth and higher P use efficiency under low P by relying on an optimized internal P management strategy, including efficient P uptake, preferential allocation to photosynthetically active tissues, and effective remobilization from older leaves. Consistently, ionomic profiling revealed that wild tomatoes preserved coordinated macro- and micronutrient homeostasis under P stress. Tissue-specific transcriptomic analyses further uncovered pronounced divergence in P-responsive regulation, with cultivated tomatoes showing predominantly root-centered responses, whereas wild accessions exhibited strong activation in old source leaves. This tissue-specific specialization was accompanied by a putative regulatory divergence, with HD-ZIP transcription factors enriched in cultivated tomatoes and G2-like and bHLH factors central in wild accessions. Together, our results indicate that modern cultivars exhibit a stronger reliance on external P acquisition and greater growth sensitivity under sustained P limitation compared to wild accessions, which showed relatively more stable internal P allocation patterns, highlighting wild germplasm as a resource for improving crop P efficiency. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plant Stress Responses: Molecular Genetics and Enzyme Regulation)
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22 pages, 11925 KB  
Article
Integrated Phylogenomic and Expression Analyses Reveal Lineage-Specific Loss of the Mβ Subfamily and Regulatory Diversification of MADS-Box Genes in Pepper
by Jiajun Zhu, Shibo Meng, Jia Liu, Ting Zhang, Yuan Cheng, Meiying Ruan, Qingjing Ye, Rongqing Wang, Zhuping Yao, Guozhi Zhou, Zhimiao Li, Chenxu Liu and Hongjian Wan
Plants 2026, 15(4), 620; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants15040620 - 15 Feb 2026
Viewed by 496
Abstract
MADS-box transcription factors are key regulators of plant development and environmental responses. Here, we performed an integrated phylogenomic and expression analysis of the MADS-box gene family in Capsicum annuum, identifying 97 members that fall into 52 Type I and 45 Type II [...] Read more.
MADS-box transcription factors are key regulators of plant development and environmental responses. Here, we performed an integrated phylogenomic and expression analysis of the MADS-box gene family in Capsicum annuum, identifying 97 members that fall into 52 Type I and 45 Type II genes. Comparative phylogeny, exon–intron organization, conserved motifs, and chromosomal mapping allowed classification into 15 subfamilies. Gene duplication analysis revealed that segmental duplication has been a major driver of family expansion. Expression profiling across multiple tissues, together with promoter cis-element prediction and stress-responsive transcriptome data, demonstrated that Type II genes exhibit broad and dynamic expression patterns, particularly under ABA treatment and temperature stress. A key finding of this study is the complete absence of the Mβ lineage, a Type I subfamily typically associated with gametophyte and endosperm development in other angiosperms. No Mβ-like sequences were detected in the pepper genome, and Type I genes overall showed extremely low expression, suggesting that the Mβ lineage has undergone lineage-specific evolutionary loss and that its functions may be compensated by other Type I members or by expanded Type II regulatory modules. Together, this study provides the first evidence for the evolutionary disappearance of the Mβ subfamily in Capsicum and offers a comprehensive resource for dissecting the developmental and stress-responsive roles of MADS-box genes in pepper. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plant Stress Responses: Molecular Genetics and Enzyme Regulation)
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