About this Research Topic

Background

Plants accumulate secondary metabolites as a line of defense against oxidative stress stirred up by biotic or abiotic stressors. In ripening grapevine berries, concentrations and profiles of secondary metabolites display a sounding impact on the definition of wine quality attributes. For this, viticulturists/technicians/scientists largely study the accumulation of secondary metabolites in ripening berries, focusing on biological, metabolic, and transcript analysis and on how cultural practices and vineyard/vine management could influence their concentrations and profiles. On the contrary, the accumulation of secondary metabolites in grapevine vegetative organs is much less studied even though it is becoming clearer that their accumulation represents the key for understanding the grapevine relationship with the surrounding environment. Nowadays, one of the main challenges of research in applied plant biology is to identify a way to boost the plant's innate defense capacities. This is an undoubtedly pivotal goal as it could help in reducing the use of plant protection products whose impact on the environment is very high, particularly in viticulture, which represents the agricultural activity that employs the highest amounts of chemical fungicides in Europe.

This Research Topic aims to address two problems:
1) First is the ongoing climate scenario that aggravates main abiotic stressors (such as light, heat waves, drought, salinity), to which grapevine varieties have to adapt. We aim to highlight new findings in the field of secondary metabolite accumulation in grapevine berries facing the global climate change.
2) The second problem is biotic stress in grapevine, with emphasis on vegetative organs. We aim to present recent findings in the accumulation of secondary metabolites in vegetative organs and its defense role in response to the most important diseases of grapevine (ie. powdery and downy mildews, esca, and other diseases caused by phytoplasma and viruses. Furthermore, this collection will highlight advances in physiological and molecular mechanisms that control the grapevine innate defense as well as the genotype-related effects.
The role of hormone mediation will also be of focus for both problems presented.

We welcome original and review articles for this Research Topic to the following scope, but not limited to:

1. Recent advances in grapevine berry secondary metabolites in response to abiotic stress
• Latest studies on the accumulation of secondary metabolites in response to abiotic stress
• Viticulture practices that influence the accumulation of secondary metabolites in berries
• Hormonal role in secondary metabolite and abiotic stress interaction in grapevine berries

2. Recent advances in secondary metabolites of grapevine vegetative organs in response to biotic stress
• Genotypic effect on secondary metabolites in vegetative organs and on grapevine response to the main biotic cues
• Recent studies on different classes of secondary metabolites in vegetative organs influenced by plant pathogens and pests
• Practices aimed to modulate secondary metabolite concentration and profiles as a contribution to the grapevine protection against biotic stressors
• Role of hormones in crosstalk between secondary metabolites and biotic stressors

An additional aim is to present global views on this topic and to encourage women, minority, and early-career researchers to contribute to this Research Topic.

Please note that descriptive studies and those defining gene families or descriptive collection of transcripts, proteins, or metabolites, will not be considered for review unless they are expanded and provide mechanistic and/or physiological insights into the biological system or process being studied.

Keywords: secondary metabolites, grapevine biotic stress, abiotic stress, vineyard, vegetative organs, plant hormones

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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