Editorial: Plant Stress -A Threat to Food Security

Jagna Chmielowska-Bąk¹Yuriy E. Kolupaev^2*Yaroslav B. Blume³

• ¹Department of Plant Ecophysiology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Greater Poland, Poland
• ²National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine, Plant Production Institute named after V.Y.Yuriev, Kharkiv, Ukraine
• ³Institute of Food Biotechnology and Genomics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NAN Ukraine), Kyiv, Ukraine

The topic of plant adaptation to toxicants is further developed in the review by El-Sappah et al. In particular, the review focuses on transporter proteins that transport heavy metal ions into vacuoles and on regulation of expression of genes encoding these proteins. This article describes the sources of metal contamination and pathways leading to their uptake by plants, transport within cells and distinct organs and activated defense mechanisms leading to their sequestration. In addition to the negative effects of metals/metalloids, some beneficial roles are presented, e.g. cofactors, metabolism modulators and anti-herbivore agents. Nonetheless, metals/metalloids in excess are harmful to plants and, thus, methods for alleviation of their toxicity are intensively studied. Close attention has been recently paid to the role in plant adaptation of several compounds that combine some properties of stress-related metabolites and phytohormones and/or components of signaling pathways. These include, in particular, gaseous signaling molecules (gasotransmitters) (Kolupaev et al., 2022) and melatonin, a hormone, which is well-studied in human and animal physiology but also synthesized in significant amounts by plants (Aghdam, Arnao, 2024) In conclusion, it should be noted that, despite its high relevance, the presented selection of articles cannot fully reflect the complexity of solving plant adaptation challenges in the context of food security. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of scientific efforts can be increased through interdisciplinary work,