Stress Biology - Call for Papers --- Special Issue "Plant response to climate change: from chromatin to metabolites"

Climate change causes more frequent stress conditions including drought, salinity, heat, flooding, and nutrient deficiency that severely reduce crop yield and are major threats to sustainable agriculture and food security worldwide. Plants have evolved multilayered responding mechanisms at the chromatin, genomic, epigenomic, transcriptional, post-transcriptional, proteome and metabolome levels, to cope with these stresses. The availability of whole genome sequences of many plant species has facilitated the analysis of global molecular changes from chromatin to metabolites in response to climate change and the discovery of the key processes in different stress responses and tolerance. Although many candidate genes, gene regulatory networks, genetic variations and quantitative trait loci (QTLs) have been implicated in stress responses, a comprehensive understanding of chromatin dynamics, non-coding RNA-mediated regulation and epigenetic modifications, and the regulation at protein and metabolite levels is still lacking. Furthermore, new approaches are needed for plant biotechnologists and breeders to design climate-resilient crop plants.

This special issue invites papers utilizing different approaches, from chromatin biology to metabolite analysis, to address plant response/adaptation to various stresses caused by the climate change. High-quality studies describing chromatin dynamics, coding and/or non-coding RNA analysis, proteome analysis, metabolome analysis, DNA methylation, histone modifications, integrated multi-omics analysis, discovery and/or characterization of epialleles/epimutations/epiQTLs are welcome. Original research papers, reviews, and short communications can be submitted to the special issue. There is no publication fee for all accepted articles. The journal follows the peer review policy (this opens in a new tab) of Stress Biology for all the special issue submissions.

Guest editor:  Prof. Mukesh Jain, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India (mjain@jnu.ac.in (this opens in a new tab))

Co-guest editor: Dr. Rohini Garg, Shiv Nadar University, India (rohini.garg@snu.edu.in (this opens in a new tab))

Submission deadline: 30 March 2024