Aug 2026· Journal of Experimental Botany· 0 citations
Medicine
TL;DR
A detailed understanding of the abiotic regulation and function of PR proteins offers rich insights into how plants coordinate survival under environmental challenge and has significant implications for developing stress-resilient crops.
Abstract
Plants are constantly exposed to biotic and abiotic stresses, but the molecular mechanisms integrating these signals remain underexplored. Traditionally viewed as defense proteins against pathogen infection, pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins comprise 19 diverse families encompassing defense-related enzymes (glucanases, chitinases, nucleases, proteases), antimicrobial peptides, enzyme inhibitors and reactive oxygen species (ROS)-generating proteins. While their significance during biotic stresses is well-documented, research has started to emerge on their dynamic regulation and functional roles in abiotic stresses, e.g. salinity, drought, heavy metal exposure, temperature and flooding. By synthesizing recent insights and critical knowledge gaps, we propose that PR proteins are global plant stress integration nodes, linking responses to abiotic and biotic stresses. We distill the core molecular principles and regulatory mechanisms underpinning the abiotic regulation of PR genes and proteins, implicating the central importance of plant hormone and ROS signaling pathways. We also critically examine the functional diversity and versatility of PR proteins, as they orchestrate cell wall remodeling, membrane stabilization, ion homeostasis, proteolytic balance and ROS metabolism in stress resilience pathways. Overall, a detailed understanding of the abiotic regulation and function of PR proteins offers rich insights into how plants coordinate survival under environmental challenge and has significant implications for developing stress-resilient crops.
A review of recent advances in the structural diversity, evolutionary distribution, and functional specialization of DnaJ proteins across model plants and crops highlights DnaJ proteins as promising molecular targets for crop improvement and climate‐smart agriculture aimed at increasing productivity, stress tolerance, and postharvest performance under changing environmental conditions.
Muhammad Arif, H. M. Rehman, S. Bashir et al.· The Plant Genome· 0 citations
This review synthesizes current insights into the molecular and physiological roles of phyto‐oxylipins, emphasizing their potential in integrating plant defense mechanisms to enhance crop productivity amid abiotic and biotic challenges.
S. Mansoor, Nabila Bettache, M. Altaf et al.· Physiologia Plantarum : An I...· 0 citations
Biotic stresses (pest feeding, pathogenic fungal/bacterial/viral infection) and diverse abiotic stresses (extreme temperature, drought, waterlogging, saline–alkali soil, heavy metal pollution, nutrient deficiency, UV-B, ozone) severely restrict crop growth and global agricultural yield. Lipids act as core membrane structural constituents and vital secondary signaling messengers, executing multi-layered adaptive balancing functions during cell-type interactive stress acclimation, rather than uniform whole-plant lipid responses. They sustain membrane structural integrity across distinct cell populations, serve as synthetic precursors of bioactive signaling molecules, and trigger cascaded transcriptional and metabolic reprogramming upon environmental stimuli to rebalance physiological status among different cell types. This review systematically summarizes cell-type interactive lipid-mediated plant defense and acclimation balance mechanisms across biotic and abiotic stress contexts. We elaborate the biological functions of fatty acids, phospholipids, galactolipids, sphingolipids and their derivatives (jasmonate, salicylic acid, phosphatidic acid, oxylipin) in stress signal transduction and antioxidant defense and strictly distinguish two categories of lipid changes under all stress types: active adaptive lipid remodeling and passive stress-induced lipid oxidative damage. Key contents include stress-triggered cell-type-specific membrane lipid remodeling, the hierarchical transcriptional regulatory network mediated by WRI1, LEC1, PHR, MADS and other transcription factors governing oil metabolism, as well as crosstalk between lipid metabolism and compartmentalized reactive oxygen species (reactive oxygen species (ROS)) signaling. We further compare conserved lipid-regulatory modules and species-specific divergent responses across model plants and economic oilseed crops, integrating state-of-the-art targeted/untargeted lipidomics, single-cell spatial lipidomics and multi-omics joint breeding strategies to improve multi-stress tolerance in oilseed crops. By consolidating global research progress up to 2025, including the two latest 2026 cross-species meta-analysis reviews, this review provides systematic theoretical support and operable multi-level technical frameworks for genetic engineering targeting conserved lipid pathways to breed stress-resilient high-oil crop germplasm, and highlights reliable lipid stress biomarker screening as a promising translational research direction.
Traditional breeding and modern techniques like Marker-Assisted Selection, Genetic Engineering, Genome Editing and Genomic Selection are used to identify and integrate desirable traits into new crop varieties, enabling breeders to develop more robust and stable crops.
This integrated framework identifies Si as a context-dependent modulator of plant–rhizosphere interactions and provides a mechanistic basis for developing precise and sustainable Si-based salinity-management strategies.
A review of WD40 repeat proteins strengthens current findings relating their structural properties, molecular mechanisms, and functional diversity, underscoring their potential as targets for developing stress-resilient, high-yield crops in a changing climate.
