EDITORIAL article
Front. Genet.
Sec. Genomics of Plants and the Phytoecosystem
This article is part of the Research TopicResponses and Adaptation of Plants to Abiotic Stress: Genetics, Evolution and Molecular InsightsView all 5 articles
Editorial: Responses and Adaptation of Plants to Abiotic Stress: Genetics, Evolution and Molecular Insights
Provisionally accepted
- 1The Institute for Advanced Study, Chengdu University, Chengdu, China
- 2Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie Department of Plant Systems Biology, Ghent, Belgium
- 3Chengdu Agricultural College, Chengdu, China
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understanding how plants respond and adapt to harsh environments at genetic, evolutionary, and molecular levels, and to bridge fundamental discoveries with crop improvement.Several contributions in this collection focus on discovering genes and pathways that confer stress tolerance. Xiong et al. (2025) Looking ahead, key priorities include understanding how plants respond to 78 combined stresses, such as drought and heat, which often occur simultaneously in the 79 field. Integrated pan-omics approaches-encompassing genomics, transcriptomics, 80 proteomics, and metabolomics-will be essential the of 81 stress responses (Mansoor and Chung, 2024;Raza et al., 2025). Translating lab findings 82 into field-ready solutions is equally crucial, requiring validation under real-world, 83 multi-stress conditions (Ganie and Azevedo, 2025). Next-generation breeding 84 technologies will drive further gains. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can 85 mine large datasets to uncover gene-trait relationships, accelerating the development 86 of stress-tolerant varieties (Crossa et al., 2025). Genome editing enables gene stacking 87 for broad-spectrum resilience (Bailey-Serres et al., 2019;Li et al., 2025), while genetic 88 resources from wild relatives and extremophiles offer untapped potential for enhancing 89 hardiness (Farooq et al., 2025). Finally, synthetic biology, including programmable 90 gene circuits, may allow intelligent reprogramming of stress responses in crops 91 (Borowsky and Bailey-Serres, 2024).
Keywords: abiotic stress adaptation, Crop Improvement, Multi-omics integration, Genome editing and gene stacking, Genetics
Received: 22 Oct 2025; Accepted: 17 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tao, Yang and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zhiqiang Wang, frank.wang1991@hotmail.com
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