Editorial: Redox Biology and Crop hHealth

Soumen Bhattacharjee ^*

• University of Burdwan, Bardhaman, India

considerable ROS accumulation, leading to programmed cell death, which eventually reduced the yield components in a barley lesion mimic mutant (LMM 5386). Further, comparative transcriptomic investigation (RNA-seq analysis) identified genes that were differentially expressed in LMM 5386 relative to the wild type. The necessity of antioxidant-coupled redox buffering for crop performance and survival was strongly supported by GO and KEGG functional annotations of transcriptome data, which indicated that lesion mimic formation of ROS in this barley mutant was mediated by pathways involving glutathione metabolism.The impact of waterlogging on oxidative stress and associated damages that strongly impacts crop health were investigated by Umicevic et al., (2024) with two contrasting genotypes of tomato [Trebinjski sitni (GB1126) and Žuti (GB1129)] differing in their waterlogging sensitivity towards tolerance. Strong evidence of the redox contribution to crop health was provided by this study, which found a positive correlation between water logging tolerance and antioxidative competence (peroxidase activity and phenolic compound content) displaying redox-regulatory homeostatic properties. Furthermore, their experimentation this study revealed that waterlogging priming can induce stress memory by adjusting the content of bioactive secondary metabolic imprint phenolics in tissues, which are important for preserving redox homeostasis and, consequently, for reducing ROS damage in tomatoes when waterlogging recurs.In their study, Li et al. (2024) examined the impact of chitosan on Kobresia pygmaea's cold stress response while addressing the function of antioxidant systems, such as enzymes and antioxidants, as well as important identifying genes linked to chilling tolerance. The physiological response of K. pygmaea in terms of the accumulation of osmoregulatory compounds, photosynthetic features, and chloroplast architecture under the influence of chilling-induced altered redox cues and key gene expression was were studied. The application of exogenous chitosan was found to enhance cold resistance by modulating and restoring redox homeostasis while upregulating the activities of antioxidative defence systems and enhancing the pool of soluble antioxidants, such as glutathione and ascorbate that help the plant to maintain the activity of Rubisco and basal photosynthesis for optimizing the metabolism of carbohydrates. These findings provide essential theoretical references for future studies on the use of chitosan for crops' ability to withstand cold temperatures as well as for plants of alpine origin.In their article, Welle et al., (2024) examined the NO emissions from root systems of crops (tomato, tobacco, and barley), by manipulating in response to low oxygen levels of humidified medium of root reactor. Furthermore, the contribution of NO derived from plants to the global NO budget during low-oxygen periods was calculated. Three experimental plant species' in vivo NO emissions under low oxygen conditions were analysed under anoxic conditions; and when compared were found to be higher than those under hypoxic conditions. According to these authors, plants experiencing low oxygen stress may be responsible for one to nine percent of yearly NO emissions, influencing crop health.In summary, all articles in this intriguing potential research topic the four studies included in this research topic contribute significantly to a better understanding of the redox regulatory mechanisms underlying plant stress response and might open up redox strategies may suggest interesting new redox-based strategies for monitoring crop health and to engineer crops with improved stress resilience.