Call for Papers for Upcoming Focus Issues in The Plant Cell

The focus issues listed in the table below are currently open for submissions. When submitting your manuscript, please indicate your interest in the focus issue in your cover letter, and select the appropriate issue in the “Focus Issue” dropdown menu where prompted on the title page information screen. Articles published in The Plant Cell on the focus topic within 1 year before or after the Focus Issue publication date will be collected in an online Focus Collection.

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Clicking on a Focus Issue Title in the table above will take you to more information about that issue.

2024 Focus on Translational Research from Arabidopsis to Crop Plants and Beyond

Edited by: Adrienne Roeder, Cris Argueso, Gabriela Auge, Xin Li, Lucia Strader, Cristobal Uauy, Mary Williams, and Shuang Wu.
Submission deadline: August 1, 2024
Publication Date: May 2025*

Over the past three decades, substantial research efforts in plant science worldwide have focused on the model system Arabidopsis thaliana.  Many of us have invested years in the study of Arabidopsis, driven by the notion that our findings will yield advancements in agriculture and natural ecosystems. Considering translation holistically as the gene functions, pathways, and technologies discovered and developed in Arabidopsis that inform our understanding of plants, Arabidopsis has had a powerful influence. In particular, the annotation of plant genomes heavily relies on the gene functions elucidated in Arabidopsis. Many technologies and techniques pioneered in Arabidopsis have been translated to crops and other plant species. Remarkably, discoveries in Arabidopsis and other plants have also contributed significantly to biomedical research (Jones et al, 2008).  For example, the auxin degron system is widely used to degrade proteins on demand in animal cells by adding auxin to the culture. Further, Arabidopsis research aimed at understanding plant adaptation to changing environments, with the goal of predicting evolutionary trajectories, holds the potential to guide conservation efforts in the face of climate change. However, we must ask the question of whether the features that make Arabidopsis a powerful model (i.e., its compact genome, ease of transformation, small size, and inexpensive growth) remain exclusive to this plant and whether the lessons learned from peculiar features of Arabidopsis can be extrapolated to plants we cultivate or those living in natural ecosystems, either directly or indirectly. If we think about translation strictly, in which a gene from Arabidopsis is expected to have a desired agronomic effect in the field when transformed into maize, the success rate stands at only 0.5% (Simons et al., 2021). For comparison, only 2.0% of maize genes transformed into maize are successful in enhancing agronomic performance, indicating the challenges of this approach (Simons et al., 2021). Likewise, in conventional breeding only a small percentage of lines that make it to yield trials will actually result in a released cultivar. Similarly, only 10% of drugs that enter clinical trials make it through to be used in human patients (Mullard, 2016).

In this focus issue, we will highlight breakthroughs in Arabidopsis research that have paved the way for discoveries and technology development in crops, in other plants, and in non-model organisms. This focus issue will also underscore the limitations of this model, including constraints in translatability to crops due to differences in biology, genome organization, and field conditions. We will gather a collection of invited reviews and we enthusiastically welcome the submission of original research that reveals fundamental insights into how discoveries and technologies traverse across various model and non-model systems.

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Jones AM, Chory J, Dangl JL, Estelle M, Jacobsen SE, Meyerowitz EM, Nordborg M, Weigel D (2008). The impact of Arabidopsis on human health: Diversifying our portfolio. Cell 133: 939–943.

Mullard A (2016). Parsing clinical success rates. Nat. Rev. Drug Discov. 15: 447–447.

Simmons CR, Lafitte HR, Reimann KS, Brugière N, Roesler K, Albertsen MC, Greene TW, Habben JE (2021). Successes and insights of an industry biotech program to enhance maize agronomic traits. Plant Sci. 307: 110899.

*Final issue publication date; all articles will be published in advance upon acceptance.

2024 Focus Issue on Proteolysis

Edited by: Nan Eckardt, Pascal Genschik, Liwen Jiang, Xin Li, Marisa Otegui, Ari Sadanandom Steven Spoel, Klaas van Wijk, Dolf Weijers
Submission deadline: October 1, 2023
Publication date: August 2024*

Proteolysis mediates the processing and turnover of proteins and is an essential cellular function. The post-translational control of protein stability is a central feature of cellular signaling in eukaryotes and is crucial for almost all aspects of plant biology, including vegetative growth, development, reproduction, and stress responses. Proteolysis plays a central role in hormone signaling pathways, plant defense against pests and pathogens, abiotic stress responses, and basic cell functions like the cell cycle, metabolism, organellar biogenesis and maintenance, and senescence. Compared with animals, plant genomes encode a highly expanded number of proteases related to proteolytic pathways including the ubiquitin-proteasome system, autophagy, programmed cell death, endosomal trafficking, and organelle-associated protein degradation. Recent advances in molecular genetics and cell biology, microscopy and high-resolution imaging, in vivo labeling, proteomics, mass spectrometry, and structural biology have led to new insights and understanding in many areas of plant proteolysis, including autophagy of chloroplasts and mitochondria, degradation of membrane proteins, the discovery of plant N-degron pathways, and proteolytic processing involved in plant development and environmental responses (immunity and abiotic stress). Knowledge of plant proteolytic systems is also important for agriculture and plant breeding given their impact on plant growth and development related to yield.

This focus issue aims to gather a collection of invited reviews and original studies involving any aspect of plant proteolysis and covering a wide range of disciplines, including cell and molecular biology, chemistry and biochemistry, imaging, physics, and systems biology, to generate new research avenues and provide solutions to some of society's challenges. We encourage the submission of original research articles that provide novel insights into all areas of plant proteolysis.

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*Final issue publication date; all articles will be published in advance upon acceptance.

2024 Focus Issue on Photosynthesis

Edited by: Ralph Bock, Roberta Croce, Nancy Eckardt, J. Clark Lagarias, Sabeeha Merchant, Kevin Redding
Submission deadline: November 1, 2023
Publication Date: October 2024*

Photosynthesis encompasses the processes by which plants, algae, and photosynthetic bacteria transform light energy into chemical energy and fix carbon from the atmosphere into organic compounds to support their growth and development. It is difficult to overstate the importance of photosynthesis to life on earth. Despite its importance, critical gaps remain in our understanding of photosynthesis, its interplay with other metabolic pathways, and the adaptation and acclimation processes that allow photosynthetic organisms to live almost everywhere on our planet. Filling these gaps will aid in improving the efficiency of photosynthesis in crop plants, accurately modeling the global carbon cycle, and enhancing terrestrial carbon sequestration to combat global climate change.

We encourage the submission of original research articles providing novel insights into all areas of photosynthesis research (e.g. light harvesting, electron transport, carbon fixation, evolution, etc.) addressed from the molecular to the eco-physiological level and using approaches from molecular and cell biology, genetics, biochemistry, biophysics, structural biology, bioinformatics, modeling, and engineering.

Image credit: George Hodan (publicdomainpictures.net).

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*Final issue publication date; all articles will be published in advance upon acceptance.