Applications of Plant Tissue Culture: New Insights into Plant Improvement Research Using Plant Tissue Culture and Plant Modification Techniques―2nd Edition

Dear Colleagues,

The global population increase puts a huge pressure on the availability of food and water resources. Traditionally, plant breeders have played a key role in the genetic improvement of the quality and quantity of crops to feed the world’s growing population. Traditional plant breeding is, however, an ineffective method for sustained genetic improvement and has many limitations. The classical plant breeding procedure is time-consuming, reliant on limited natural genetic resources, and labour-intensive. Plant biotechnology has emerged as a reliable set of tools that empowers plant breeders to use genes of beneficial traits from diverse sources and insert them into plant genomes for genetic modifications. In addition, plant tissue culture (PTC) is a core biotechnology for maintaining or growing plant cells, tissues, or organs under aseptic conditions. There have been remarkable advances in PTC research on multiple fronts including the regulation of plant developmental processes in vitro, discoveries of biologically active compounds, gene transfer, and production of secondary metabolites of medicinal significance. Most recently, the integration of PTC with novel techniques such as genome editing has opened a new window for improving desirable traits in plants. Therefore, this Special Issue, titled “New Insight into Plant Improvement Research using Plant Tissue Culture and Plant Modification Techniques―2nd Edition”, aims to attract contributions on new advances in PTC, focusing on plant growth regulators, gene transformation, genome editing, molecular farming, and other applications of plant culture research in vitro. We welcome the submission of original research papers, reviews, and novel in vitro protocols including, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Micropropagation;
• Cell totipotency;
• Phytochemical production by in vitro cultures;
• Somaclonal variation;
• Somatic embryogenesis;
• De novo organogenesis;
• Synthetic seeds;
• Virus-free plants;
• Cell suspension culture;
• Hairy root culture;
• Cellular reprogramming;
• Callus formation;
• Plant transformation;
• Molecular plant breeding;
• Genetics;
• Genome editing;
• DNA (transgene)-free editing;
• Base/prime editing;
• HDR-based editing;
• The CRISPR/dCas9 system;
• Off-target effects;
• Transcription factors;
• Rewiring of plant defence genes in vitro;
• Bioreactors;
• Secondary metabolites in plant tissue cultures;
• Elicitors;
• Plant defence mechanisms;
• Biotic and abiotic stress in vitro culture;
• Plant growth regulators;
• Quality improvement;
• Phytoremediation.

Dr. David W. M. Leung
Dr. Rambod Abiri
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.

• micropropagation
• molecular plant breeding
• genome editing
• biotic and abiotic stress in vitro culture
• secondary metabolites in plant tissue cultures

• Applications of Plant Tissue Culture: New Insight into Plant Improvement Research Using Plant Tissue Culture and Plant Modification Techniques in Plants (8 articles)