Plants, with their incredible diversity and adaptability, offer a unique opportunity to study evolutionary processes at the genomic level. Understanding how plant genes and gene families evolve over time is crucial for gaining insights into functional adaptations to environmental pressures, stress tolerance, and the regulation of key biological processes. The integration of phylogenomics, epigenetic mechanisms, and molecular dynamics is particularly illuminating, shedding light on how evolutionary pressures influence gene functions and how proteins adapt structurally and functionally in response to environmental changes.

Understanding the evolutionary adaptations of plant genes is essential for uncovering how plants have evolved to thrive in diverse and often extreme environments. Despite significant advances in genomics, the intricate relationship between phylogenomics, epigenetic regulation, and molecular dynamics remains largely unexplored. How do plant genes evolve under selective pressures? What role do epigenetic modifications play in driving gene expression changes over evolutionary timescales? And how do these changes translate into functional adaptations at the molecular and protein levels?

This research aims to bridge these knowledge gaps by exploring the phylogenomics of plant gene families, their epigenetic regulatory mechanisms, and the resulting molecular dynamics that govern protein function. These components are key to understanding how plants adapt to challenges such as climate change, soil nutrient variations, pathogens, and metal toxicity. Integrating these aspects is essential to fully comprehend gene evolution.

This Research Topic seeks to explore the phylogenomics of plant genes and gene families, focusing on how evolutionary processes like gene duplication, divergence, and epigenetic regulation shape functional adaptations in plants. The aim is to uncover the underlying mechanisms that enable plants to adapt to various environmental stresses, from nutrient scarcity and metal toxicity to climate change and pathogen resistance. We invite contributions that bridge the gaps between genomics, epigenetics, and molecular dynamics to build a holistic understanding of plant evolution and adaptation.

We encourage submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

• The expansion of plant gene families, comparative analyses of key pathways in plants like Arabidopsis, and studies on gene adaptation in plant lineages.
• How DNA methylation, histone modifications, and non-coding RNAs influence plant adaptation to stresses like toxicity and drought, using comparative epigenomics to study evolutionary adaptation.
• Research that examines how structural changes in proteins from resilient plants affect their function, focusing on the evolution of transport proteins, enzymes, and transcription factors.
• Research that integrates genomic, epigenetic, and proteomic data using systems biology to model plant responses to environmental stresses, exploring evolutionary changes from DNA sequences to protein dynamics and phenotypes.
• Translational research that applies insights from plant evolutionary biology and examines epigenetic markers and protein dynamics to develop crops with enhanced resistance to environmental stresses for plant breeding and crop engineering programs.

We welcome a variety of manuscript types, including Original Research, Reviews, Methods, Perspectives, Opinions, and Data Reports. Contributors are encouraged to provide integrative research that connects these disciplines to address key questions in plant evolution and adaptation.

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Frontiers in Plant Science

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