About this Research Topic
Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and intensity largely affecting crop yields. Heatwaves, drought, flooding, salinity, and heavy metals are abiotic elicitors that have detrimental physiological effects on plant growth and yield, severely threatening food security.
Cultivated crops have been selected based on agronomically relevant traits strongly limiting their genetic variability and affecting their resilience to environmental changes. While it is widely acknowledged that wild relatives can be a valuable aid for cultivated crop resilience improvement, their exploitation is still partial. Transcription factors (TFs) are master regulators of stress-responsive genes are excellent candidates for crop improvement. Related examples in recent studies include TF gene modulation and overexpression approaches in crop and wild-relatives species to enhance stress tolerance. They are involved in plant defence regulations by acting as mediators by perceiving stress signals and directing downstream defence gene expression. The cross interactions of TFs and stress signalling crosstalk are decisive in determining the accumulation of defence metabolites, such as against oxidative stress elicitors. Therefore, the TFs acting on the major secondary metabolites, as terpenoids, phenolics and alkaloids, are of paramount importance for these purposes. However, much remains to be discovered about the diverse plant TFs. Over more than 80 TF families, only a few, such as NAC, MYB, AP2/ERF, WRKY, bHLH, bZIP, and DREB with vital roles in abiotic stress responses have been intensively studied.
This Research Topic aims to bring to the scientific community the latest knowledge enhancement on the role of TFs in the tolerance of crops to the abiotic stresses regarding stress sensitivity and response through production of defensive compounds preserving crop yield. Moreover, since their high importance also crop-wild relatives are considered in this Research Topic. To this end, scientists involved in this multidisciplinary research field, from genetics to transcriptomics and gene editing, are invited to contribute to the gain of knowledge presenting their valuable results, which will represent a precious contribution to crop improvement.
Cultivated crops have been selected based on agronomically relevant traits strongly limiting their genetic variability and affecting their resilience to environmental changes. While it is widely acknowledged that wild relatives can be a valuable aid for cultivated crop resilience improvement, their exploitation is still partial. Transcription factors (TFs) are master regulators of stress-responsive genes are excellent candidates for crop improvement. Related examples in recent studies include TF gene modulation and overexpression approaches in crop and wild-relatives species to enhance stress tolerance. They are involved in plant defence regulations by acting as mediators by perceiving stress signals and directing downstream defence gene expression. The cross interactions of TFs and stress signalling crosstalk are decisive in determining the accumulation of defence metabolites, such as against oxidative stress elicitors. Therefore, the TFs acting on the major secondary metabolites, as terpenoids, phenolics and alkaloids, are of paramount importance for these purposes. However, much remains to be discovered about the diverse plant TFs. Over more than 80 TF families, only a few, such as NAC, MYB, AP2/ERF, WRKY, bHLH, bZIP, and DREB with vital roles in abiotic stress responses have been intensively studied.
This Research Topic aims to bring to the scientific community the latest knowledge enhancement on the role of TFs in the tolerance of crops to the abiotic stresses regarding stress sensitivity and response through production of defensive compounds preserving crop yield. Moreover, since their high importance also crop-wild relatives are considered in this Research Topic. To this end, scientists involved in this multidisciplinary research field, from genetics to transcriptomics and gene editing, are invited to contribute to the gain of knowledge presenting their valuable results, which will represent a precious contribution to crop improvement.
Keywords: Crop Improvement, Drought, Salinity, Heat Waves, Cold, Heavy Metals, Specialized Metabolism, Stress-Responsive Genes, Cultivated Crop Resilience
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