Simple Summary Wheat, rice, maize, barley, and sorghum feed most of the world, but their harvests are increasingly damaged by weather extremes that arrive together, such as drought combined with heat, or salty soil combined with cold. When two stresses hit at once, crop damage is worse than either stress alone would cause, and plants respond in ways that differ from how they respond to a single stress. Most studies still test crops against only one stress at a time, leaving a poor understanding of how plants cope with combinations. This review brings together three areas of plant science that are usually studied separately. These are the internal switches, called regulatory proteins, that turn stress defence genes on and off, the chemical markers on plant genetic material that can remember past stress and help the plant respond faster next time, and modern gene editing tools that can fine tune these systems in crop plants. By connecting these three areas into one framework, the review shows which mechanisms are well understood, which remain unknown, and which crops need further study, particularly barley and sorghum. This work offers a roadmap for researchers and plant breeders aiming to develop cereal varieties that can withstand multiple weather stresses at once, supporting global food security as climate conditions become more unpredictable and severe.
Cereal crops collectively account for more than half of global human caloric intake, yet the molecular mechanisms governing their root systems under water and nitrogen limitation remain poorly understood relative to their agronomic importance. The C-terminally encoded peptide (CEP) family has emerged, primarily from work in Arabidopsis thaliana and Medicago truncatula, as a class of post-translationally modified peptide hormones that coordinate nitrogen demand signalling through a root-to-shoot-to-root relay involving CEPR1 leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinases and phloem-mobile CEPD glutaredoxins, regulate lateral root gravitropic set-point angle through integrated auxin and cytokinin pathway interactions, and contribute to abiotic stress responses through stabilisation of AUX/IAA transcriptional repressors under osmotic stress. This review synthesises CEP biology with the specific architectural and agronomic characteristics of cereal root systems, explicitly distinguishing between findings established in model dicots, evidence for receptor-ligand conservation in cereals, and mechanisms that remain untested in crops. CEPR1 orthologues in barley, maize, and rice restore wild-type phenotypes in Arabidopsis complementation assays, and CRISPR-Cas9 knockout of CEPR1 in barley confirms effects on seminal root angle, though an associated fecundity defect highlights translational complexity. Proposed connections between CEP signalling and ABA pathways remain hypothetical. In wheat, TaCEP15 modulates primary root length and drought tolerance through a receptor pathway mechanistically distinct from the canonical CEP-CEPR1-CEPD nitrogen relay, indicating functional diversification within the CEP family. Five tractable research priorities are identified, and CRISPR-based approaches, synthetic peptide application, and marker-assisted selection are discussed as near-term strategies for cereal crop improvement under drought and nitrogen-limited conditions.
Baber Ali, Zeeshan Khan, N. Imin· Plant, Cell and Environment· 2 citations
The novel synthesis offered here repositions epigenetic regulation, specifically H3K27ac and H3K27me3 dynamics at NRT2 , GS, and storage protein loci, as a principal determinant of cultivar‐specific nitrogen use efficiency operating independently of DNA sequence variation.
Baber Ali, Zeeshan Khan, N. Imin· Journal of Sustainable Agric...· 0 citations
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