Theoretical and Experimental Plant Physiology - Call for Papers: Metabolomics and plant metabolism regulation and integration

Submission deadline: 31 October 2024

Guest Editors

Danilo M Daloso, PhD
Federal University of Ceará, Brazil

Ricardo Bressan-Smith, PhD
State University of Norte Fluminense, Brazil

Marcelo Maraschin, PhD
Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil

Background

Plant metabolism is usually separated in primary and secondary metabolisms, which are commonly associated with their roles in cell growth and development processes and defence responses to (a)biotic stress factors, respectively. However, plant metabolism operates as a tightly integrated and highly regulated network. It means that both primary and secondary metabolisms are interdependent, and their role should not be restricted to the growth vs defence paradigm.

Thus, advanced plant metabolism studies require complex analytical tools that allow performing high-throughput biochemical and metabolic assays, besides shaped experimental approaches and proper statistical and bioinformatic tools for extracting relevant information from metabolic data. In turn, this will certainly improve our understanding on how plant metabolism is regulated and how these mechanisms aid plants to acclimate and/or tolerate stress conditions, which is of paramount importance in the current climate change scenario.

In this context, several metabolomics approaches such as metabolite profiling, metabolic fingerprinting, and metabolic flux analysis raise as important strategies to evaluate the dynamic and the regulation of plant metabolism. However, several important methodological details in terms of sample preparation, metabolite annotation, integration with other omics fields (e.g., genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics) and bioinformatic tools, besides proper statistical analysis are still neglected in plant metabolomics studies.

Aims and scope

Considering these aspects, this Thematic Collection aims to combine different types of articles (research articles, reviews, perspectives, and letters) concerning the state-of-art of metabolomics approaches currently used (or neglected) in plant physiology studies, how they can be used to improve our understanding on physiological process as well as how different metabolic pathways are regulated and respond to stress conditions.

We welcome submissions covering (but not limited to) the following topical areas:

- Plant metabolomics approaches:

• Metabolite profiling
• Metabolic flux analysis
• Metabolic fingerprinting 
• Metabolomic applications within animals, plants and microbes

- Regulation and integration of plant metabolism:

• Carbon metabolism 
• Nitrogen metabolism 
• Redox metabolism 
• Interplay between different metabolisms
• Cell type metabolism
• Transcriptomics and proteomics in systems biology

- Plant metabolic networks

- Metabolic modelling

- Plant metabolic responses to biotic and abiotic stress conditions

- Plant metabolic responses in the context of the climate change

- Bioinformatic tools applied to the investigation of the plant metabolome

How to submit

If you have not been invited by the editors and would like to submit a manuscript, please send a pre-submission enquiry (this opens in a new tab). Manuscripts submitted without a previous enquiry will not be considered for publication.

Manuscripts should be formatted according to the journal’s submission guidelines (this opens in a new tab) and submitted via the online submission system (this opens in a new tab).

All manuscripts will be peer reviewed as usual and follow the journal's policies, with final decisions made by the Editor-in-Chief.

IMPORTANT: You will be asked, during the submission process, if your manuscript is part of a Collection. Please respond “yes” and select the option “Metabolomics”.