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Call for papers - Plant disease resistance

Guest Editors:
Baffour Badu-Apraku: International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Nigeria
Fei Shen: Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, China

Submission Status: Open   |   Submission Deadline: 31 October 2023


Moving towards sustainable societies has led to the research community seeking innovative ways to grow and maintain the environment around us, paving the way for a secure future. Within the plant sciences, this has accelerated research on understanding plant disease resistance to ensure sustainable plant and crop breeding towards both conservation and food security. In recognition of this fast-paced area of research, the Editors of BMC Plant Biology launch the collection on Plant disease resistance calling for research supporting the UN's SDGs on Zero hunger, Climate action, sustainable cities and communities, and protecting Life on land. 

Meet the Guest Editors

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Baffour Badu-Apraku: International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Nigeria

Baffour Badu-Apraku is a Principal Scientist, Maize Breeder, and Quantitative Geneticist at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria. His focus includes breeding, testing, and the promotion of technology transfer, especially with regard to the adoption of open-pollinated and hybrid varieties of normal endosperm, Quality Protein (QPM), Pro-vitamin A Maize, and sustainable agronomic practices. Many early and extra-early diseases, Striga, drought, low soil nitrogen-tolerant varieties and hybrids have been developed in his program, formally released, and widely adopted. 


Fei Shen: Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, China


Fei Shen is currently a tenured assistant professor at the Institute of Biotechnology, Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences (BAAFS) in China. His primary experience is with plant genomes and genome evolution and has been part of whole genome projects of apple, jasmine, and plum. He also works to develop analytical tools that address complex genetic processes. His group’s current interests include comparative and evolutionary genomics to address the mechanistic basis underlying structural and functional genomic changes in flowering plants, with an emphasis on duplication-driven and transposon-mediated gene and genome evolution and genetic dissection of complex traits.



 


About the collection

In their environment, plants are susceptible to diseases caused by microorganisms and pests. This also presents a major threat to food security and has a tremendous environmental impact. This often has serious economic losses to crops each year and can also wipe out entire species of plants, forcing conservation efforts and breeding practices that promote resistance to these diseases. To survive this, they develop a mechanism to fight the diseases either through innate or acquired resistance involving their immune system. Additionally, cutting-edge technologies allow us to investigate the biological process in a higher dimension, including high-throughput sequencing, Single-cell technologies, CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing, and deep learning. 

In this collection, BMC Plant Biology welcomes submissions that tap into the understanding of disease resistance in plants and build towards building this resistance towards sustainable breeding and crop production. New insights, strategies, datasets, and reviews are encouraged. 

The collection welcomes submissions on the following broad areas of research:

  • Elucidating plant-pathogen interactions through genomics, proteomics, high-throughput sequencing for resistance, virulence genes in crops, and pathogens.
  • Evolution and mechanisms of plant disease resistance
    • Evolution and regulation of R genes, their mode of action, and how R genes initiate immune signaling.
  • Crop protection
    • Use of chemicals and other crop management practices.
  • Disease resistance and conservation
  • Disease resistance and sustainability 
  • Genetic modification of crops to improve disease resistance
    • Genetic-engineered disease resistance in crops
    • CRISPR-Cas gene editing in crops
    • Genetic modifications via RNA interference (RNAi)
    • Resistance gene enrichment sequencing (RenSeq)
  • Breeding for disease resistance
    • Conventional and molecular approaches to breeding for resistance in crops 
  • Cell and molecular biology of disease resistance
  • Plant immune systems and immune mechanisms
    • Innate and acquired immune systems
    • Morphological features, molecular architectures, and mechanisms governing hypersensitive response (HR) cell death in crops.
    • Immune surveillance systems in crops
  • Plant resistance signaling
    • Immune-pathways, structure, function and role in various signaling genes and recognition patterns for resistance in crops
  • Expression and regulatory mechanisms
  • Resistance genes and elicitors of plant immunity
  • Technological and methodological advances in plant disease resistance research



Image credit: Yue Jin

  1. Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a devastating fungal disease that poses a significant threat to wheat production, causing substantial yield losses. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of wheat resistance to FHB ...

    Authors: Can Chen, Qi Guo, Qifang He, Zhuangbo Tian, Weihao Hao, Xinyu Shan, Jie Lu, Bronwyn J. Barkla, Chuanxi Ma and Hongqi Si
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2023 23:433
    Content type: Research Published on:

  2. Rice is the second-largest food crop in the world and vulnerable to bacterial leaf streak disease. A thorough comprehension of the genetic foundation of agronomic traits was essential for effective implementat...

    Authors: Xiaoyang Zhu, Lei Chen, Zhanying Zhang, Jinjie Li, Hongliang Zhang, Zichao Li, Yinghua Pan and Xueqiang Wang
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2023 23:396
    Content type: Research Published on:

  3. Plant-parasitic root-knot nematodes cause immense yield declines in crop plants that ultimately obviate global food security. They maintain an intimate relationship with their host plants and hijack the host m...

    Authors: Tushar K. Dutta, Neeraj Vashisth, Soham Ray, Victor Phani, Viswanathan Chinnusamy and Anil Sirohi
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2023 23:390
    Content type: Research Published on:

  4. Anthracnose is a fungal disease caused by Colletotrichum spp. that has a significant impact on worldwide pepper production. Colletotrichum scovillei is the most common pathogenic anthracnose-causing species in th...

    Authors: Nayoung Ro, Mesfin Haile, Onsook Hur, Ho-Cheol Ko, Jung-Yoon Yi, Hee-Jong Woo, Yu-Mi Choi, Juhee Rhee, Yong-Jik Lee, Dong-Am Kim, Jae-Wang Do, Geon Woo Kim, Jin-Kyung Kwon and Byoung-Cheorl Kang
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2023 23:389
    Content type: Research Published on:

  5. Maize production in lowland agro-ecologies in West and Central Africa is constrained by the fungus Exserohilum turcicum, causal agent of Northern Corn Leaf Blight (NCLB). Breeding for resistance to NCLB is consid...

    Authors: Faith A. Bankole, Baffour Badu-Apraku, Abiodun O. Salami, Titilayo D.O. Falade, Ranajit Bandyopadhyay and Alejandro Ortega-Beltran
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2023 23:386
    Content type: Research Published on:

  6. Chrysanthemum Fusarium wilt is a common fungal disease caused by Fusarium oxysporum, which causes continuous cropping obstacles and huge losses to the chrysanthemum industry. The defense mechanism of chrysanthemu...

    Authors: Weihao Miao, Yanrong Yang, Mengtong Wu, Gan huang, Lijiao Ge, Ye Liu, Zhiyong Guan, Sumei Chen, Weimin Fang, Fadi Chen and Shuang Zhao
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2023 23:312
    Content type: Research Published on:

  7. Fusarium head blight (FHB), caused by Fusarium graminearum, is one of the most destructive wheat diseases worldwide. FHB infection can dramatically reduce grain yield and quality due to mycotoxins contamination. ...

    Authors: Mitra Serajazari, Davoud Torkamaneh, Emily Gordon, Elizabeth Lee, Helen Booker, Karl Peter Pauls and Alireza Navabi
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2023 23:290
    Content type: Research Published on:

  8. The myeloblastosis (MYB) superfamily is the largest transcription factor family in plants that play diverse roles during stress responses. However, the biotic stress-responsive MYB transcription factors of the...

    Authors: Xianyou Wang, Shanshan Zhao, Ruijin Zhou, Yunli Liu, Longlong Guo and Huiling Hu
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2023 23:279
    Content type: Research Published on:

  9. Cassava mosaic disease (CMD) of cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) has expanded across many continents. Sri Lankan cassava mosaic virus (SLCMV; family Geminiviridae), which is the predominant cause of CMD in Thai...

    Authors: Somruthai Chaowongdee, Srihunsa Malichan, Pornkanok Pongpamorn, Atchara Paemanee and Wanwisa Siriwan
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2023 23:178
    Content type: Research Published on:

  10. Alternaria solani (A. solani), the main pathogen of potato early blight, causes serious yield reductions every year. The application of fungicides is the most common and effective method of controlling Alternaria

    Authors: Jia Jiang, Xuhao Guo, Huanhuan Tan, Mingya Ding, Fangming Liu, Zhihui Yang and Jiehua Zhu
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2023 23:120
    Content type: Research Published on:

  11. Powdery mildew, caused by Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici (Bgt), is a serious fungal disease that critically threatens the yield and quality of wheat. Utilization of host resistance is the most effective and eco...

    Authors: Wenjing Zhang, Ziyang Yu, Dongmei Wang, Luning Xiao, Fuyu Su, Yanjun Mu, Jianpeng Zheng, Linzhi Li, Yan Yin, Tianying Yu, Yuli Jin and Pengtao Ma
    Citation: BMC Plant Biology 2023 23:113
    Content type: Research Published on:

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of 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 "Plant Disease Resistance" 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.