About this Research Topic

Background

Plant interactions with the environment at a molecular and physiological level have generated considerable interest in recent years. The sessile nature of plants exposes them to adverse environmental conditions throughout their life cycle, which negatively affect their growth, development, and productivity. One important factor that can damage plants is the presence of toxic compounds like heavy metals (HMs). A number of physiological and metabolic processes are affected by these compounds. Although the term "HM" is strictly used to refer to elements with specific gravities above five, biologists often use it to refer to a wide range of metals and metalloids toxic to plants, including copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn), nickel (Ni), cobalt (Co), cadmium (Cd), arsenic (As), and others. Therefore, it is important to explore how metal ions regulate gene expression, chromatin structure, and epigenetic modifications in response to metal stress using biomolecular techniques, molecular biology, and biochemistry.

Different key components ensuring HM tolerance in plants have been identified and have made significant progress in determining HM toxicity. However, many key questions remain unanswered. Additionally, different HMs elicit different mechanisms to show toxicity symptoms and plants employ defense mechanisms against particular HMs. Utilizing a variety of models, this project examines how metal toxicity is regulated and what molecular mechanisms are involved.

We accept all article types for this Research Topic, including Hypothesis & Theory, Methods, Mini Review, Opinion, Original Research, Perspective, Review, and Systematic Review. We invite authors to submit their manuscripts on the themes of:

• Multilevel regulation of metal stress responses in plants
• Expression and regulation of stress-responsive genes in plants under metal stress responses
• The molecular basis of genome stability under metal stress
• The role of post-transcriptional modulators in response to metal stress
• Alternative splicing control of metal stress responses
• Long non-coding RNAs: Emerging players regulating metal stress
• Epigenetic regulation of gene expression in response to heavy metal exposures

Keywords: transcriptional regulation, posttranscriptional regulation, metal toxicity, heavy metals, metal stress

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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