About this Research Topic

Background

Environmental issues are causing agricultural output to decline while the human population grows rapidly. Estimates show one-third of the land area could be used for arable farming. Only 10% of the 13 billion hectares on earth are used for agriculture. This is due to the fact that the majority of the 1.4 billion hectares of farmland worldwide are subject to abiotic stresses, which in one way or another inhibit output. Cold stress seriously threatens crop yields, one of the abiotic stresses. In fact, cold stress has a negative impact on plant growth and development, causing significant crop losses. Poor germination, stunted seedlings, chlorosis, limited leaf growth, wilting, and even tissue death are some phenotypic indications of cold stress. Cold stress also significantly hinders plants' reproductive systems. Not only is cold stress prevalent in agricultural systems, but also natural ecosystems - an important point to consider.

Cold stress causes significant membrane damage. This harm is mostly caused by severe dehydration brought on by freezing under cold stress. A plant can suffer from two different types of injury when exposed to low temperatures. The first is chilling injury, which occurs at temperatures between 20 and 0 °C. The resultant injuries may include physiological disruptions in germination, flower and fruit development, yield, and storage life. The second type of injury is freezing injury. This type of injury occurs when the external temperature drops below the freezing point of water. Some varieties of plants susceptible to chilling injury can be killed by the first touch of frost.

Plants have complex mechanisms to resist cold stress. The process of cold acclimation, which involves exposing plants to non-lethal low temperatures in the past to raise their freezing tolerance, is one of these mechanisms. An extensive range of physiological and biochemical events are experienced throughout this process. In plants, soluble sugars, proline, and proteins that can withstand chilly temperatures are just a few of the various chemicals or protective proteins produced physiologically. In plants under cold stress, these chemicals control osmotic potential, ice crystal formation, cell membrane stability, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging. The ability of plants to withstand low temperatures (0 to 15 °C) without harm or damage is another mechanism. Cold acclimation and chilling tolerance involve physiological, molecular, and metabolic pathways. In such circumstances, plants attempt to maintain homeostasis to develop freezing tolerance, and this necessitates substantial metabolic and gene expression reprogramming.

This Research Topic intends to probe the effects of cold stress on plants' growth and physiological activities. It also intends to understand the cold tolerance and growth laws of plants grown under cold stress. We welcome Original Research, Mini Reviews, and Reviews, that provide up-to-date and in-depth scientific knowledge of:

- Revealing the physiological effects of cold stress under agricultural and natural ecosystems

- Sensing cold temperatures and signal transduction

- The role of various cold-responsive genes and transcription factors in cold stress tolerance

- Preliminarily analyzing the mechanism of cold tolerance, which would benefit the breeding of new cold-tolerant plants and improve their tolerance capacity in the future

Descriptive studies that report responses to abiotic stress treatments without contributing to the mechanistic, or genetic, understanding of the responses observed will not be considered for peer review.

Keywords: Chilling, Cold acclimation, Cold-responsive genes, Crop Improvement, Freezing, Molecular processes, Physiological responses, Protein degradation, Protein kinases and phosphatases, Signal perception and transduction, Transcriptional regulation

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