Combined Abiotic Stress Responses in <i>Solanaceae</i>: Deciphering the Regulatory Network

The Solanaceae family includes some of the world’s most economically and nutritionally important crops, including tomato, potato, pepper, eggplant, and tobacco. In the field, these crops are rarely exposed to a single stress in isolation. Drought combined with heat, salinity with heavy metal toxicity, or cold with nutrient deficiency occur frequently, and their combined effects on yield and quality are often non-additive and more devastating than the individual stresses alone. As climate change intensifies these co-occurring challenges, understanding how Solanaceae crops respond to combined abiotic stresses has become an urgent priority.Recent advances in multi-omics and functional genomics have identified numerous stress-responsive genes in Solanaceae, and genome-wide identification of stress-responsive gene families has laid the groundwork for understanding how these regulatory components may interact under combined stress scenarios. However, most studies have been conducted under single-stress conditions, and their findings cannot be directly extrapolated to complex field environments. Moreover, prevailing regulatory network paradigms are largely derived from Arabidopsis thaliana, which lacks defining Solanaceae traits. As a result, how these networks integrate multiple simultaneous stress signals remains poorly understood.This Research Topic focuses on how Solanaceae plants orchestrate responses to combined abiotic stresses at the regulatory network level. We seek contributions that go beyond cataloging differentially expressed genes under single stresses and instead examine how regulatory networks are wired, rewired, and coordinated when multiple stresses co-occur.We welcome Original Research, Review, Mini Review, Methods, Perspective, and Hypothesis and Theory articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:-Transcriptional regulators that orchestrate responses to two or more co-occurring abiotic stresses in Solanaceae .- Signaling crosstalk and pathway integration under combined drought, salinity, temperature, or heavy metal stress.- Feed-forward and feedback loops, as well as hub node functions, within stress-responsive transcription factor and signaling networks.- Cross-species comparison of stress regulatory networks across Solanaceae species, wild relatives, or genotypes differing in combined stress tolerance.- Targeted genome editing (e.g., CRISPR/Cas systems) and robust functional validation of crucial network nodes predicted through multi-omics.- Translating regulatory network insights into molecular breeding strategies for broad-spectrum stress tolerance in Solanaceae crops. Topic editors: Zhiyuan Li, Xiaoxu Li, Zhengrong Hu, Mehanathan Muthamilarasan Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/81728/combined-abiotic-stress-responses-in-solanaceae-deciphering-the-regulatory-network