Oxylipins: The Front Line of Plant Interactions

Plants deploy oxylipins as signaling molecules for communications within and between cells and within and between individuals, to cope with environmental stresses and to regulate processes that are involved in growth and development. It is well established that plants can rapidly initiate increased production and metabolism of oxylipins when challenged by herbivores or pathogens, or by abiotic factors such as drought, increases in temperature or ozone levels. The major stress hormone, jasmonic acid and its conjugates, involved in mediating transcriptional responses to these environmental factors, is also an oxylipin. Oxylipin volatiles have a role for attraction of natural enemies of herbivores to indirectly eliminate herbivores, and to induce defense responses in adjacent leaves of the same plant or in surrounding undamaged plants. Knowledge on biosynthetic pathways, metabolism and biological functions of the major oxylipins, such as jasmonates and several volatile compounds has increased enormously. However, much more work is needed to understand the diversity in plant-derived oxylipins, their specific roles in plant physiological processes and the mechanisms of early signaling by oxylipins.

This Research Topic aims to cover various aspects of oxylipin biology including recent advances in biological and biochemical roles of jasmonates and other oxylipins.

We invite submissions of Original Research, Brief Research Report, Reviews, and Mini Review articles via Frontiers in Plant Science with a focus on the following topics:
• Enzymes for biosynthesis of oxylipins and their regulation at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels.
• Isolation and structural identification and biological roles of novel oxylipins.
• Protein-protein, protein-DNA, and protein-chemical interactions for oxylipin signaling.
• Ecological and physiological roles of oxylipins for plant abiotic stresses and interactions with other organisms (animals, microbes, and plants) and their modulation by environmental stimuli.
• Evolution and natural diversity of oxylipins and oxylipin signaling molecules.
• Specialized techniques such as exogenous treatments of plants grown in various hydroponic systems.

Please note that Original Research manuscripts with largely descriptive results are out of scope of Frontiers in Plant Science. Results that provide hypothesis-driven insights into physiological processes that address the above points are invited.

Additionally, we welcome Original Research articles via Frontiers in Chemistry to describe:
• Analytical methods of oxylipins with conventional LC, GC, other standard analytical equipment.
• Analytical methods of very specialized oxylipins with state-of-the-art equipment.

'Analytical Chemistry' in Frontiers in Chemistry requires that the reported methods and technologies are sufficiently innovative and robust compared to other available methods and that systems are demonstrated with real samples. The submitted manuscripts must report a significant advance in the analytical process.

We also encourage the submission of Perspectives and Opinion articles to overview the current problems and difficulties in this area, and future directions of oxylipin biology.