About this Research Topic
Plants have evolved a wide range of adaptation mechanisms to survive in harsh and changing environments. Abiotic stresses such as salinity, drought, aluminum toxicity, heavy metals, and other environmental stimuli, have a negative impact on the capability of plants to uptake water and nutrients, which, as a consequence, frequently leads to the inhibition and impairment of plant growth and development.
Improvement of plant tolerance to abiotic stress represents one of the most important tasks for modern agriculture. In order to improve abiotic stress tolerance via plant breeding and biotechnology techniques, a detailed understanding of the physiological and molecular mechanisms of plant adaptation to hostile soil environments is required. The broad spectrum of methods and approaches applied to study mechanisms of plant abiotic stress tolerance, such as high throughput phenotypic screens, molecular genetics, genetic engineering, different types of “omics” (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, microbiomics, ionomics, etc.), and functional assays, have revealed cause-effect relationships on the implemented signaling cascades.
One of the crucial questions that still needs to be solved is the evaluation of the role of membrane transporters in plant sensing and adaptation to hostile environmental conditions. The ion transporters play important roles in plant nutrition, Ca2+ and ROS signaling, K+ homeostasis, detoxification and compartmentalization, photosynthesis and turgor regulation, just to mention some examples. Not only are ion transporters involved in the mediation of plant stress responses but stress itself affects the expression and regulation of transporters. Thus, plants need to implement various strategies to minimize the negative stress effects. The Arabidopsis genome encodes around 880 members of cation transporters, all of which have different physiological roles, cellular membrane localization, regulation, and tissue distribution. Therefore, understanding and evaluating their role in adaptation to harsh environments, together with identifying their regulatory mechanisms, is an essential challenge for achieving the goal of improving modern agriculture.
In this Research Topic, we would like to collect research data and opinions addressing current knowledge about the role of plant membrane transporters and ionic homeostasis on key abiotic stresses such as salinity, drought, aluminium toxicity, heavy metals, and flooding. We welcome articles as Original Research, Review and Methods.
Improvement of plant tolerance to abiotic stress represents one of the most important tasks for modern agriculture. In order to improve abiotic stress tolerance via plant breeding and biotechnology techniques, a detailed understanding of the physiological and molecular mechanisms of plant adaptation to hostile soil environments is required. The broad spectrum of methods and approaches applied to study mechanisms of plant abiotic stress tolerance, such as high throughput phenotypic screens, molecular genetics, genetic engineering, different types of “omics” (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, microbiomics, ionomics, etc.), and functional assays, have revealed cause-effect relationships on the implemented signaling cascades.
One of the crucial questions that still needs to be solved is the evaluation of the role of membrane transporters in plant sensing and adaptation to hostile environmental conditions. The ion transporters play important roles in plant nutrition, Ca2+ and ROS signaling, K+ homeostasis, detoxification and compartmentalization, photosynthesis and turgor regulation, just to mention some examples. Not only are ion transporters involved in the mediation of plant stress responses but stress itself affects the expression and regulation of transporters. Thus, plants need to implement various strategies to minimize the negative stress effects. The Arabidopsis genome encodes around 880 members of cation transporters, all of which have different physiological roles, cellular membrane localization, regulation, and tissue distribution. Therefore, understanding and evaluating their role in adaptation to harsh environments, together with identifying their regulatory mechanisms, is an essential challenge for achieving the goal of improving modern agriculture.
In this Research Topic, we would like to collect research data and opinions addressing current knowledge about the role of plant membrane transporters and ionic homeostasis on key abiotic stresses such as salinity, drought, aluminium toxicity, heavy metals, and flooding. We welcome articles as Original Research, Review and Methods.
Keywords: Plant Membrane Transport, Ionic Homeostasis, Hostile Soils, Plant Abiotic Stress
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