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Abiotic stresses such as high temperature, low-temperature, drought and salinity limit crop productivity worldwide. Understanding plant responses to these stresses is essential for rational engineering of crop plants. In Arabidopsis, the signal transduction pathways for abiotic stresses, light, several phytohormones and pathogenesis have been elucidated. A significant portion of plant genomes (Arabidopsis and rice were mostly studied) encodes for proteins involves in signaling such as receptor, sensors, kinases, phosphatases, transcription factors and transporters/channels. Despite decades of physiological and molecular effort, knowledge pertaining to how plants sense and transduce low and high temperature, low-water availability (drought), water-submergence, microgravity and salinity signals is still a major question for plant biologist. One major constraint hampering our understanding of these signal transduction processes in plants has been the lack or slow pace of application of molecular genomic and genetics knowledge in the form of gene function. In the post-genomic era, one of the major challenges is investigation and understanding of multiple genes and gene families regulating a particular physiological and developmental aspect of plant life cycle. One of the important physiological processes is regulation of stress response, which leads to adaptation or adjustment in response to adverse stimuli. With the holistic understanding of the signaling pathways involving not only one gene family but multiple genes or gene families, plant biologist can lay a foundation for designing and generating future crops, which can withstand the higher degree of environmental stresses (especially abiotic stresses, which are the major cause of crop loss throughout the world) without losing crop yield and productivity. Therefore, in this e-Book, we intend to incorporate the contribution from leading plant biologists to elucidate several aspects of stress signaling by functional genomics approaches.

abiotic stress --- biotic stress --- Signal Transduction --- Genomics --- unctional Genomics --- Crop Improvement

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Discovered in plants at the turn of the century, microRNAs (miRNAs) have been found to be fundamental to many aspects of plant biology. These small (20–24 nt) regulatory RNAs are derived via processing from longer imperfect double-stranded RNAs. They are then incorporated into silencing complexes, which they guide to (m)RNAs of high sequence complementarity, resulting in gene silencing outcomes, either via RNA degradation and/or translational inhibition. Some miRNAs are ancient, being present in all species of land plants and controlling fundamental processes such as phase change, organ polarity, flowering, and leaf and root development. However, there are many more miRNAs that are much less conserved and with less understood functions. This Special Issue contains seven research papers that span from understanding the function of a single miRNA family to examining how the miRNA profiles alter during abiotic stress or nutrient deficiency. The possibility of circular RNAs in plants acting as miRNA decoys to inhibit miRNA function is investigated, as was the hierarchical roles of miRNA biogenesis factors in the maintenance of phosphate homeostasis. Three reviews cover the potential of miRNAs for agronomic improvement of maize, the role of miRNA-triggered secondary small RNAs in plants, and the potential function of an ancient plant miRNA.

microRNAs --- dehydration --- desiccation --- resurrection plants --- Tripogon loliiformis --- post-transcriptional gene silencing --- miRNAs --- miR171 --- pollen --- STTM --- tapetum --- callose --- tomato --- Arabidopsis thaliana --- abiotic stress --- heat stress --- drought stress --- salt stress --- microRNAs (miRNAs) --- miRNA target gene expression --- RT-qPCR --- tasiRNA --- phasiRNA --- miRNA --- secondary siRNA --- Arabidopsis thaliana --- phosphorous (P) --- phosphate (PO4) stress --- microRNA (miRNA) --- miR399 --- PHOSPHATE2 (PHO2) --- DOUBLE-STRANDED RNA BINDING (DRB) proteins DRB1 --- DRB2 --- DRB4 --- miR399-directed PHO2 expression regulation --- RT-qPCR --- plastocyanin --- photosynthesis --- copper deficiency --- Cu-microRNA --- copper protein --- target mimicry --- maize (Zea mays L.) --- miRNA --- phasiRNA --- tasiRNA --- agronomic traits --- crop improvement --- Solanum lycopersicum --- drought --- Colorado potato beetle --- miR159 --- MYB transcription factors --- P5CS --- proline --- putrescine --- miR159 --- GAMYB --- programmed cell death --- aleurone --- tapetum --- vegetative growth --- flowering --- circRNA --- microRNA --- non-coding RNA --- argonaute --- immunoprecipitation --- plant --- miRNAs --- development --- abiotic stress --- nutrient availability --- circular RNAs --- tasiRNA --- phasiRNA