Hormone Metabolism and Function in Plant Developmental Plasticity

Plant development is a dynamic process under precise hormonal control. Phytohormones are major regulators of cellular and developmental plasticity, translating environmental change into a physiological response. There exist many types of phytohormones and thus the breadth of their respective roles in plant development remains largely undiscovered. Since the discovery of auxin, cytokinins, gibberellins, abscisic acid, ethylene, brassinosteroids, and more recently salicylates, jasmonates, and strigolactones, have been added to the growing phytohormonal family – and it is important to understand their respective roles in modulating development according to environmental cues.

The balance of biosynthesis, metabolism, transport and release from conjugated forms regulates endogenous levels of the hormone signaling forms, and thus determines their physiological effect. Understanding the concentration of phytohormones and their related metabolites has facilitated the elucidation of many plant processes, including, among others, the disclosure of the role played by auxin and cytokinin maxima in the growth and patterning of apical meristems. Phytohormones typically act at very low concentrations; highly sensitive methods are therefore needed for their accurate quantification and improving our understanding of phytohormone dynamics.

In recent decades, biological (e.g., phytohormone-inducible promoter-reporter systems, degrons, and biosensors), biochemical, and bioanalytical methods based on chromatography and mass spectrometry have become the primary methods for phytohormonal quantification. Recent improvements in the sensitivity of techniques for the quantitative analysis of plant hormones have opened up the possibility of studying hormone dynamics at a deeper level (e.g., at the cellular and subcellular level), and thus we hope to unite novel results using such technology.
This Research Topic aims to bring together current knowledge and advances that deepen our understanding of the regulatory role played by plant hormones and related metabolites in plant developmental plasticity. We invite authors to submit Original Research articles plus Methods articles introducing novel phytohormone investigation techniques. We also welcome Review articles highlighting the recent developments and current challenges in this field.

Authors are therefore encouraged to submit articles covering:
• Plant hormone metabolism: biosynthesis, conjugation, and catabolism pathways;
• Regulation and localization of plant hormone metabolism;
• Control and function of plant hormone homeostasis in plant growth and development;
• Phytohormonal crosstalk regulating plant physiological processes;
• Structural aspects of plant hormone metabolism (enzymology, structural modeling, molecular docking);
• Recent advances in the analysis of phytohormones and related metabolites.

Keywords: developmental plasticity, hormone, hormonal control, phytohormone

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.