About this Research Topic

Background

Plant growth and development are affected by several environmental and endogenous signals, coupled with its intrinsic genetic program. These processes are fundamentally mediated by several growth regulators collectively known as plant hormones or phytohormones. Despite their low concentrations in plants, phytohormones play crucial roles as they involve in almost every aspect of plant growth and development. The cellular and developmental processes regulated by one single hormone can be astoundingly diverse, while multiple hormones often affect the same process in different ways.
In the last few decades, the rapid development of next-generation sequencing and "omics" technologies has revolutionized the speed and effectiveness of identifying valuable molecules during physiological changes in plants. A great deal of data on plant genomes, transcriptomes, proteomes, and metabolomes have been generated, allowing researchers to systematically decipher the regulatory mechanisms of plant growth and development at different genetic levels. A comprehensive understanding of plant growth regulation will also facilitate plant breeding for important agronomic traits to promote the product yield and quality of horticultural plants. Additionally, given the great diversity of horticultural species, multi-omics studies will provide novel insights into the trait evolution and domestication history of plants.

This Research Topic aims to cover a wide range of studies that apply omics approaches to reveal the molecular mechanisms of growth and development in horticultural plants. Advances in high-throughput omics data analysis or bioinformatics workflow build-ups are also welcome.

We accept submissions of different paper types, including original research articles, reviews, and mini-reviews. Subthemes of interest are listed as follows but not limited to:
• Multi-omics study on genes/gene networks regulating growth and development in horticultural plants
• Identification of gene expression patterns
• Prediction and validation of the functions of novel domains, motifs, genes, and proteins using omics data
• Genomic analysis of functional gene evolution and trait selection in horticultural plants
• Genomics-assisted breeding for important agronomic traits
• Novel bioinformatic analysis workflow or computational models on omics/multi-omics/omics-traits

Please note that descriptive studies will not be considered unless they provide meaningful insights into the physiological processes of growth and development in horticultural plants.

Keywords: multi-omics, plant growth and development, growth regulation, phytohormones, horticulture

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