Stress Biology

The Stress Biology Excellent Young Scholar Award aims to recognize promising scientists in the early stages of their careers in any field of stress biology. Applicants include PhD students and researchers with up to 5 years’ experience since receiving their PhD. The award provides 20,000 (RMB) to each winner. A maximum of 5 winners will be selected and awarded each year.

All junior investigators are encouraged to apply for this award. Eligible applicants for the 2023 Stress Biology Excellent Young Scholar Award should be: 1) the first author or corresponding author of a research article submitted to Stress Biology before December 31, 2023; and 2) current PhD students or researchers with no more than 5 years’ experience since receiving their PhD (should be calculated back from the end of 2022 and exclude career breaks).

Crop plants are constantly infected by diverse pathogens including fungi, bacteria, viruses and nematodes, considerably reducing crop production and thus threatening food security globally. During long evolution, plants have evolved a multi-layered immune system to fight against pathogens, mainly pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) and effector-triggered immunity (ETI) that mount natural disease resistance in plants. Crop disease resistance has long been considered as an important measure to secure stable yield and food production along with high yield potential. Crop breeding for disease resistance usually uses resistance (R) genes that trigger ETI and provide robust resistance. However, high disease resistance may also decrease other agronomic traits of plants, leading to yield penalty due to the growth–defense tradeoff. Therefore, exploiting of more efficient disease resistance genes/alleles and breeding strategies with balancing high disease resistance and yield potential has been a long demand in crop breeding.

This special issue aims to publish state-of-the-art research on gene discovery, molecular mechanisms, defense-growth tradeoffs of plant immunity and pathogen pathogenicity in crops, as well as advanced molecular breeding and genome editing in crop breeding. We welcome submissions of original research papers, reviews and short communications to the special issue. There is no publication fee for all accepted articles.

Guest editor: Zuhua He, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, China

Co-guest editors: Jian-Min Zhou, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, CAS, China

Guo-Liang Wang, Ohio State University, USA

Submission deadline: 30 September 2024

Salicylic acid (SA) is a naturally occurring versatile plant hormone with essential roles in plant growth, development, and stress response. SA has been demonstrated to improve resistance to many pathogens such as viruses, fungi and bacteria, and tolerance to major abiotic stresses such as salinity, drought, osmotic, metal, heat and chilling, and radiation stress.

For establishing resistance to the pathogen, accumulation of SA triggers a number of immune responses, like massive transcriptional reprogramming, cell wall strengthening, and production of secondary metabolites and antimicrobial proteins. For improving tolerance to abiotic stress, SA was reported to stimulate expression of a number of genes encoding chaperone, heat shock proteins (HSPs), antioxidants, and secondary metabolites sinapyl alcohol dehydrogenase (SAD), cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase (CAD), and cytochrome P450. SA was also known to have a regulatory role in mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade.

This special issue aims to publish studies that focus on the following topics, but not limited to:

1. The regulation of SA biosynthesis and signaling pathways.
2. The crosstalk between SA and other hormones.
3. Molecular mechanism underling SA-mediated plant defense against phytopathogens.
4. SA-mediated plant tolerance to abiotic stress, such as drought, salinity, and temperature stress.
5. The application of SA-based strategies for crop improvement and stress mitigation.
6. Techniques for the quantification and analysis of SA-mediated signaling pathways.

Reviews, original research papers, short communications and highlights can be submitted to the special issue. Publication fee will be waived for all accepted articles. 

Guest editor: Dr. Jian Chen,  Jiangsu University, China

Co-guest editor: Dr. Huan Chen, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

Submission deadline: 30 September 2024

Recent advances in single-cell RNA sequencing technology have enabled transcriptomic analysis at a single-cell resolution and thus allowed fine dissection of gene expression and regulation at the cellular level. However, comprehending such single-cell data in the context of tissues requires the application of approaches for spatial analysis of gene expression at the genome level. In addition, obtaining intricate gene regulatory networks in a cell requires multi-omics analyses by assessing two or more modalities of omics information.

Thanks to the rapid advances in single-cell transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics technologies in the post-genome era, multi-omics data integrative analysis at a single-cell level has become an indispensable strategy for uncovering the underlying biological mechanisms. These approaches have provided unprecedented opportunities to explore the heterogeneity of tissues and to reveal cellular and molecular mechanisms of diverse biological processes such as tissue development, tissue regeneration, and tissue degeneration in response to biotic and abiotic stresses in plants. 

This special issue aims to publish high-quality studies on the topics related to single-cell and spatial multi-omics characterizations of cells, including:

I. Communication between cells;

II. Evolution of various cells in plant response to stresses;

III. Mechanisms of acquired resistance of plant response to stresses:

IV. Innovation of new omics technology or improvement of current technology:

V. Novel methods for single-cell-based experiments or data analysis.

Original research articles, reviewers and short communications can be submitted to the special issue. There is no publication fee for all accepted articles.

Guest editor: Dr. Xuwu Sun, Henan University, China

Co-guest editors: Dr. Kunpeng Jia, Henan University, China

Dr. Vincent Ninkuu, Henan University, China

Submission deadline: 30 September 2024