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Editorial: Women in plant science - redox biology of plant abiotic stress 2022

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This editorial introduces a special journal issue highlighting contributions by women scientists in the field of plant stress biology. No primary microplastics or environmental research content is present in this entry.

advances and related information from researchers working in the field of redox biology, particularly in abiotic stress tolerance. We celebrate the success of female scientists and seek to empower and encourage their future work. Female scientists make significant contribution to all fields of plant science. Examples of their work is presented in this collection, in which all the articles have female corresponding authors. These papers not only highlight the importance of redox biology in plant responses to a diverse range of abiotic stresses, but they also present original advances in knowledge, approaches, and methods with potential applications in agriculture. Three reviews in this Research Topic summarise current concepts in redox biology, particularly PTMs and the role of oxidative metabolism in plant responses to abiotic stressThree of the original manuscripts presented in this collection are related to the responses of plants to extremes of temperature. Unpredictable temperature extremes such as heatwaves that are linked to climate change, pose serious threat to plant development and yields. Jindal et al. (2022) identified the role of type-A arabidopsis response regulators (ARR), which are competitors of the main components of cytokinins (CKs) signalling, the transcription factors type-B ARRs, in plant response to heat stress (HSR).Type-A ARRs negatively mediate HSR in arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) HEYNH.) and mutants lacking functional ARRs experience a priming state increasing their thermotolerance to elevated temperatures, showing proteomic changes similar to that of a heat acclimation. Interestingly, type-A ARR mutants showed an enhancement of low molecular weight antioxidants such as ascorbate and glutathione. GENOMES UNCOUPLED 1 (GUN1) is a key protein for retrograde signalling from chloroplast to the nucleus and it has been shown to be essential in plant thermotolerance in arabidopsis in the manuscript by Lasorella et al. (2022). gun1 mutants fail to induce a transient oxidative burst after heat shock treatment, which seems to be essential for the activation of stress responsive genes during the recovery period. The analysis of different redox and Reactive oxygen species (ROS)-related parameters in wt and gun1 mutants after heat shock treatment and recovery period suggests a key role for tylacoidal ascorbate peroxidise in GUN1-dependent thermotolerance. Furthermore, iodoacetyl tandem mass tags (iodo-TMT)-proteomic analysis in cold acclimated rape (Brassica napus L. Allan et al. (2022) showed the development of a chip-based treatment technique paired with a reporter gene approach to measure cytosolic Ca 2+ transients in arabidopsis in response to osmotic and salt stress. In contrast to published chip-based methods, the modification of the chip described here has the advantage to permit a more localized application of the treatment, a free choice of the direction of flow inside the chip and also a unilateral application of the test solution. This dual-flow RootChip (dfRC) could advance our understanding of how plants perceive and decode stress information in specific tissues at the cellular or subcellular levels. This is of relevance not only for stress research but also for other applications.Although the contamination of the environment with nanoplastic is an emerging issue worldwide, until recently the attention has not been drawn to the effects of nanoplastics in plants. Ekner-Grzyb et al, (2022) revises up-to-date information with special emphasis on the oxidative response. Exposure to nanoplastics leads to increase in reactive oxygen species, and the altered nutrient photosynthesis levels result in hampered plants growth.In addition, nanoplastics alert plants physiology through modulation of genes expression on the transcriptomic level. The knowledge generated in recent years on redox posttranslational modifications and their interplay in the acclimatization processes of plants is gathered in the review by Martí-Guillen et al. (2022). The overproduction of molecular reactive species, mainly reactive oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur species, has been recorded after abiotic stresses, and they can modify proteins by PTMs. This process is proposed to not occur randomly but that the enzymatic activity can be modulated by the modification of critical amino acid residues. The review focuses on the redox-based post transcriptional modifications of the enzymes that participate in the main stress-related pathways, such as oxidative metabolism, primary metabolism, cell signaling events, and photosynthetic metabolism. Especial attention to nitric oxide, which promotes the first step in the redox state of the thiol groups from cysteines, so-called S-nitrosylation, is paid in the review by Mata-Pérez et al., (2023). This review collects significant and recent advances in NOdependent PTMs, in particular, S-nitrosylation, in plant response to different abiotic stress. Therefore, key results involving NO function in plant response to drought and salt stress, high and low temperature, mechanical wounding, heavy metals, hypoxia, UV radiation and ozone exposition are discussed.Verbančič J, Lunn JE, Stitt M, Persson S ( 2018

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