Convergent Regulatory Hubs and AI-Guided CRISPR Reprogramming of Secondary Metabolism for Combined Stress Resilience in Legumes.

Legume crops increasingly face simultaneous abiotic (drought, heat, salinity) and biotic (insect pests, pathogens) pressures under climate change, and accumulating evidence indicates that these two stress classes converge on shared regulatory hubs rather than acting through independent pathways. Non-coding RNAs microRNAs, long non-coding RNAs, and small interfering RNAs are emerging as key integration points at these convergence nodes, coordinating transcriptional and post-transcriptional responses across stress signalling cascades. Notably, many of the same hub genes and regulatory circuits also govern flavonoid, alkaloid, and terpenoid biosynthesis, metabolite classes central both to plant defence and to the nutritional and pharmacological value of grain legumes.Legumes present a particularly compelling system for this work: their nitrogen-fixing symbiosis introduces additional metabolic trade-offs under combined stress, their secondary metabolite profiles carry direct dietary and nutraceutical relevance, and rapidly expanding pan-genome and multi-omics resources across soybean, chickpea, common bean, and other grain legumes now make cross-species hub validation tractable. Despite this, mechanistic understanding of ncRNA-mediated cross-talk between stress resilience and secondary metabolism remains fragmented, and few studies have progressed from correlative multi-omics associations to functionally validated, breeding-ready targets.This Research Topic focuses on identifying and functionally validating these convergent ncRNA and metabolic hub genes that link combined abiotic-biotic stress resilience to secondary metabolism in legumes. We welcome contributions that integrate using multi-omics integration, machine learning-assisted network inference, and CRISPR/Cas-guided reprogramming, with particular emphasis on translating hub identification into marker-assisted or gene-edited breeding strategies for combined-stress-resilient nutritionally enhanced legume cultivars.• QTL/GWAS mapping of ncRNA loci and associated regulatory variants linked to dual-stress (abiotic + biotic) tolerance• AI- and machine learning-assisted prediction of convergent regulatory hub genes and gene regulatory networks from multi-omics datasets (transcriptomics, epigenomics, metabolomics, proteomics)• Epigenetic and chromatin-level regulation (DNA methylation, histone modification) intersecting with ncRNA-mediated hub control• CRISPR/Cas9 functional validation of candidate hub genes• Network-level analysis of flavonoid, alkaloid, and terpenoid pathways shared between stress defense and nutritional/pharmacological quality• Pan-genome and wild-relative introgression approaches for allele mining at validated hub loci• Marker-assisted and gene-edited breeding strategies built on functionally validated hub genes• Case studies in soybean, chickpea, common bean, lentil and other grain legumesWe welcome Original Research, Review, Mini Review, Systematic Review, and Perspective articles. Topic editors: Aiman Hina, Tuanjie Zhao, Dr. Jyoti Prakash Sahoo Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/86022/convergent-regulatory-hubs-and-ai-guided-crispr-reprogramming-of-secondary-metabolism-for-combined-stress-resilience-in-legumes