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Call for papers - Multi-omics approaches for plant disease diagnosis and resilience

Guest Editors:
Sunil S. Gangurde: University of Georgia, USA
Manish Pandey: International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, India
Youxiong Que: Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, China

Submission Status: Open   |   Submission Deadline: 22 June 2024


In nature, plants are constantly exposed to microorganisms and pests, some of which can be pathogenic. Plant diseases can have a strong environmental and economic impact, and represent a major threat to food security due to crop yield losses. This is especially true under the extreme weather conditions associated with climate change, which affect the response of plants to abiotic and biotic stress, including infectious diseases. The occurrence and spreading of plant diseases demand major efforts to understand how and why the pathogenesis occurs, and improve the available strategies for plant disease diagnosis, management and resistance. BMC Plant Biology announces the launch of the collection Multi-omics approaches for plant disease diagnosis and resilience. We invite submissions of manuscripts on novel research and applications where multi-omics methods are applied to improve disease diagnosis and resilience in plants. This collection aims to highlight the importance and potential challenges of developing and integrating multi-omics technologies to take a holistic approach on plant pathogenesis, plant disease diagnosis and control, and ultimately plant disease resistance.

Meet the Guest Editors

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Sunil S. Gangurde: University of Georgia, USA

Dr Gangurde completed his PhD at the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad, India. During the PhD he worked in the area of peanut genomics and established genomic tools useful for developing disease resistance in peanuts. Currently, he is working as Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Georgia, Tifton, USA. During the postdoc he is leading the pangenome initiative of Aspergillus flavus, a fungus that produces aflatoxins especially in peanut and corn. Dr Gangurde has published close to 50 research articles in various international peer-review journals, and he is serving as an editorial board member of several international journals including BMC Plant Biology.

Manish Pandey: International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, India

Dr Pandey is currently leading the Groundnut and Pigeon pea Genomics, Prebreeding & Bioinformatics group at International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad, India. His key contributions include developing and deploying genomic resources for breeding climate-resilient and  high-nutritional-value crop varieties. He has published more than 170 scientific articles (>8000 citations) in various international journals, including Nature Genetics, PNAS and Molecular Plant. Recognizing his contribution, he has now been inducted in many scientific academies of India, as Fellow of The National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (New Delhi) and Telangana Academy of Agricultural Sciences (Telangana).

Youxiong Que: College of Agriculture, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, China

Dr Que is a full Professor in the College of Agriculture at the Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (FAFU). He was employed as an assistant professor in 2008, promoted to be an associate professor in 2010 and a professor in 2015. He has been a visiting scientist at USDA-ARS during 2010-2011. He is now the director of Key Laboratory of Sugarcane Biology and Genetic Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs / FAFU, China. His research interests are in the fields of crop genetics and biotechnology, especially sugarcane biotechnology, including but not limited to the following three aspects: molecular interactions between crops and pathogens, gene mining and function identification, and molecular breeding. Dr Que serves as an editorial board member for several eminent journals including BMC Plant Biology.

About the collection

In nature, plants are constantly exposed to microorganisms and pests, some of which can be pathogenic. Plant diseases can have a strong environmental and economic impact, and represent a major threat to food security due to crop yield losses. This is especially true under the extreme weather conditions associated with climate change, which affect the response of plants to abiotic and biotic stress, including infectious diseases. The occurrence and spreading of plant diseases demand major efforts to understand how and why the pathogenesis occurs, and improve the available strategies for plant disease diagnosis, management and resistance.

Recent advances in next-generation sequencing technologies enabled the emergence of different omics technologies, such as genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, proteomics, phenomics and ionomics. Multiple-omics approaches have been applied to plant systems for developing effective diagnostic tools for plant diseases and better understanding plants' response to disease. When implemented and integrated, multiple-omics methods can provide a ‘holistic picture’ that can reveal how plants sense, respond to and eliminate disease-causing (micro) organisms. They can therefore be essential in revealing the mechanisms underlying plant-microbial interactions, developing effective diagnostic tools for plant diseases, and bioengineering genetic control strategies for disease resilience in plants.

To acknowledge the relevance of this growing research field in the context of achieving sustainable food security for the future (The United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals 2 (SDG2), ‘Zero hunger’), BMC Plant Biology announces the launch of the collection Multi-omics approaches for plant disease diagnosis and resilience. We invite submissions of manuscripts on novel research and applications where multi-omics methods are applied to improve disease diagnosis and resilience in plants. This collection aims to highlight the importance and potential challenges of developing and integrating multi-omics technologies to take a holistic approach on plant pathogenesis, plant disease diagnosis and control, and ultimately plant disease resistance.

Our collection seeks to showcase recent research articles and methods exploring a broad range of research areas, including the following topics:

  • Application and integration of omics technologies (e.g. genomics, meta-genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, proteomics) for plant disease diagnosis and resilience
  • Genomes and pangenomes of disease-causing pathogens, and pan-genome-wide association (pan-GWAS) studies to uncover unknown virulence genes
  •  Pathogenicity-associated genes in bacterial and fungal pathogens
  • Host-induced gene silencing (HIGS) and spray induced gene silencing (SIGS) using RNA silencing mechanisms to manage pathogens in the field
  • Quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to identify plant disease resistance loci or genes
  • Population genomics of plant pathogens
  •  Genomics-assisted breeding of crop varieties for disease resistance
  •  Multi-omics approaches applied to plant-pathogen interactions
  • Molecular crosstalk between host and pathogen during infection
  •  Plant-microbiome crosstalk to improve disease resilience in plants
  • Development of diagnostic markers for pathogen identification and rapid disease diagnosis
  • Plant phenomics and ionomics applied to plant disease diagnosis and resilience


Image credit: Production Perig / stock.adobe.com

  1. Aconitum carmichaelii Debx. has been widely used as a traditional medicinal herb for a long history in China. It is highly susceptible to various dangerous diseases during the cultivation process. Downy mildew is...

    Authors: Lijuan Chen, Yiwen Hu, Li Huang, Long Chen, Xianglei Duan, Guangzhi Wang and Hong Ou
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2024 24:332
    Content type: Research Published on:

  2. Foliar diseases namely late leaf spot (LLS) and leaf rust (LR) reduce yield and deteriorate fodder quality in groundnut. Also the high oleic acid content has emerged as one of the most important traits for ind...

    Authors: Manish K. Pandey, Sunil S. Gangurde, Yaduru Shasidhar, Vinay Sharma, Sandip M. Kale, Aamir W. Khan, Priya Shah, Pushpesh Joshi, Ramesh S. Bhat, Pasupuleti Janila, Sandip K. Bera and Rajeev K. Varshney
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2024 24:262
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in BMC Plant Biology 2024 24:336

  3. Seed germination is an important development process in plant growth. The phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) plays a critical role during seed germination. However, the mechanism of rapeseed in response to ABA i...

    Authors: Yaqian Chen, Jinfeng Wu, Changrui Ma, Dawei Zhang, Dinggang Zhou, Jihong Zhang and Mingli Yan
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2024 24:245
    Content type: Research Published on:

  4. Plant microbiome confers versatile functional roles to enhance survival fitness as well as productivity. In the present study two pearl millet panicle microbiome member species Bacillus subtilis PBs 12 and Bacill...

    Authors: Mushineni Ashajyothi, Shivannegowda Mahadevakumar, Y. N. Venkatesh, Pullabhotla V. S. R. N. Sarma, Chalasani Danteswari, Alexander Balamurugan, Ganesan Prakash, Vikas Khandelwal, C. Tarasatyavathi, Appa Rao Podile, Kirankumar S. Mysore and Siddaiah Chandranayaka
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2024 24:197
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in BMC Plant Biology 2024 24:264

  5. Grafting is widely used as an important agronomic approach to deal with environmental stresses. However, the molecular mechanism of grafted tomato scions in response to biotic stress and growth regulation has ...

    Authors: Ce Liu, Yanhong Jia, Lixia He, Hui Li, Jian Song, Lizhu Ji and Chunguo Wang
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2024 24:130
    Content type: Research Published on:

  6. The nucleotide binding site leucine rich repeat (NBLRR) genes significantly regulate defences against phytopathogens in plants. The genome-wide identification and analysis of NBLRR genes have been performed in se...

    Authors: Alexander Balamurugan, Mallana Gowdra Mallikarjuna, Shilpi Bansal, S. Chandra Nayaka, Hosahatti Rajashekara, Tara Satyavathi Chellapilla and Ganesan Prakash
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2024 24:75
    Content type: Research Published on:

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Multi-omics approaches for plant disease diagnosis" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.