Editorial: Integrating Omics to Unveil Legume Stress Response Mechanisms

Inês Maria Valente^1*Cristiano Fortuna Soares²Henrique Manuel da Fonseca Trindade³

• ¹LAQV Network of Chemistry and Technology, Porto, Portugal
• ²GreenUPorto, Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
• ³Centre for the Research and Technology of Agro-Environmental and Biological Sciences, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Vila Real, Braga, Portugal

Legumes (Fabaceae) are among the most important crop families globally, with significant economic relevance for both human and livestock animal consumption.These plants are crucial for balancing animal and plant-based protein intake, contributing to healthier and more sustainable diets. The resilience of legume cropss to various edaphoclimatic conditions, coupled with their ability to biologically fix atmospheric nitrogen, makes them essential for sustainable agricultural systems. Indeed, tThe high diversity within the Fabaceae family allows different species and cultivars to adapt to a wide range of soil and climate conditionsenvironments, enabling their cultivation across diverse agroclimatic regions.The expected increase of the World population and the intensification of climate change-related impacts in the next decades will translate into unprecedent pressures on the agricultural sustainability and profitability. Besides the economic impact on industries dependent on production, the food/feed security and availability will also be severely affected by future global scenarios, especially in already susceptible regions, such as the Mediterranean. Indeed, while it is necessary that crops yields doublethere is an increase in crop produtivity, this growth must be accompanied by increasingly sustainable practices and the use of fewer natural resources. Therefore, the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development clearly highlights, as a top priority, the promotion of sustainable production systems and resilient practices towards that foster increased productivity and production facing and combat climate change.Over the past decades, the effects of drought, the most limiting factor for plant Understanding the dormancy mechanisms of underground buds can help farmers to determine the optimal periods for harvesting and transplanting rhizomes, ensuring better survival and growth rates. In this work, the researchers identified 1069 differentially accumulated metabolites (DAMs) and 16832 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) during the dormancy transition, primarily involved in amino acid and carbohydrate metabolism, hormone signaling pathways, and starch and sucrose metabolism. They have also demonstrated that indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) may play a key role in the transition from endo-to ecodormancy, as the highest IAA content and the highest number of DEGs enriched in the IAA signaling pathway.Astragalus membranaceus open a new approach over strategies for breaking dormancy in advance and shortening breeding time, while also clearly demonstrating the importance of combining complementary approaches to fully elucidate complex biological phenomena..