Regulation of Abiotic Stress Responses in Vegetable Crops II

Dear Colleagues,

In the context of global climate change, vegetable production is challenged by the frequent occurrence of different abiotic stresses, including drought, flooding, extreme temperatures, insufficient sunlight, salinity, and nutrient starvation. To ensure yield sustainability, intensive efforts are required to improve the stress tolerance of vegetable crops. Fundamental research in model plants provides insights into the signaling network of plant response to abiotic stresses. However, regulation of stress response and improving the vegetable yield in a fluctuating environment require intensive research efforts to obtain a better understanding of the physiological, biochemical, and molecular basis of crop adaptation to abiotic stresses and coordination of growth and tolerance. Meanwhile, it is essential to uncover the genetic and epigenetic basis of climate-resilient vegetable crops. Identification of key genes and regulators in the stress response and innovation of high-throughput phenotyping platforms will inevitably promote the engineering and breeding of climate-resilient vegetable crops.

This Special Issue of Plants will highlight the regulation of stress tolerance of vegetable crops and the underlying physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms, identification of candidate genes/enzymes that are targets for engineering to produce better yields under fluctuating environments, and signal crosstalk in adaptation to abiotic stresses. The main topics include but are not limited to:

• Biological processes at the physiological and cellular levels in response to abiotic stresses;
• Transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic studies to reveal the signaling pathway of stress response;
• New genes, proteins, and natural compounds that regulate stress tolerance;
• Roles of epigenetic regulation in stress response;
• Hormone homeostasis and signaling in stress response;
• Coordination of plant growth and stress tolerance;
• Mechanisms of stress acclimation;
• Application of new techniques to increase stress tolerance and the underlying mechanisms;
• Engineering plants with promising target genes;
• Phenotyping flatforms to detect physiological responses to abiotic stresses.

Prof. Dr. Xiaojian Xia
Guest Editor

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• abiotic stress response
• climate-resilient vegetable crops
• regulation of abiotic stress tolerance
• signal crosstalk
• yield penalty