Plants MDPI

02/10/2025

🌱 Less than 1 month left to apply!

The Plants Travel Award 2025 offers PhD students and postdoctoral fellows in plant science the chance to attend international conferences in 2026.

🏆 Prize: CHF 800 and a certificate
🎓 Number of winners: 3
⏳ Applications open until 31 October 2025

Launched in 2017, this annual award continues to encourage young scientists to expand their impact and visibility in the field.

⏱️ Don’t miss out—apply today!
👉 https://brnw.ch/21wWi71

24/09/2025

🌿 Curious about the latest in phytochemistry research?

📚 Our Editors have handpicked outstanding articles from 2024 that explore the power of plant compounds, from carotenoids and phytochemicals to sea fennel and Echinacea.

✨ Discover advances in health, medicine, and plant bioactivities in this special collection.

✍️ Featuring contributions from international scholars including Elda Victoria Rodríguez-Negrete, Fatemeh Ahmadi, Iris Correia, Ana E. Ortega-Regules, Adam Kowalczyk, Rosamaria Caminiti, Krastena Nikolova, Rita Jakabfi-Csepregi, Tamás Kőszegi, Lina Raudone, Jessica Maiuolo, and many more.

👉 Read the collection: https://brnw.ch/21wW3pH

All of the articles published in our journal are in an open access format, offering our readers free and unlimited...

11/09/2025

✨ Editor’s Choice 2024 – Section Plant Protection and Biotic Interactions

We’re excited to share the selected Editor’s Choice articles published in Plants in 2024! 🚀 These papers highlight cutting-edge research on plant–microbe interactions, plant defense, allelopathy, and more.

All articles are open access, offering free and unlimited access to readers worldwide. 🌍📖

🔗 Read the full announcement and explore the featured articles here:
👉 https://brnw.ch/21wVFQw

All of the articles published in our journal are in an open access format, offering our readers free and unlimited...

05/09/2025

21/08/2025

🌱 Exciting Opportunity for Young Researchers in Plant Science!

The Plants Travel Award 2025 is now open! ✈️🌿

Since 2017, this award has been helping young researchers share their work at international conferences — boosting their visibility, collaborations, and careers.

✨ What’s in it for you?
🏆 CHF 800 travel grant
📜 Official award certificate
🌿 3 winners selected

📅 Key dates
📝 Apply by: 31 October 2025
🏅 Winners announced: 31 December 2025

👩‍🔬 Who can apply?
– PhD students & postdocs
– Presenting (poster or talk) at an international conference in 2026

👉 Apply now: https://brnw.ch/21wV4Uq

Don’t miss this chance to showcase your research and connect with the global plant science community! 🌍✨

15/08/2025

🌱 Explore Our Editor’s Choice Articles of 2024!

We’re excited to share the selected Editor’s Choice Articles from the “Plant Response to Abiotic Stress and Climate Change” section in Plants MDPI. All articles are open access, giving you free and unlimited access to the full texts!

📖 Highlights include research on:
• Enhancing plant stress tolerance through metabolism and gene regulation
• Predicting plant distribution under climate change
• Mechanisms of extreme environment resistance in Antarctic plants
• Creating climate-resilient crops for drought, heat, and salt stress
• Mitigating water stress and stabilizing crop yields

Check out all 10 selected articles here: https://brnw.ch/21wUWg9

💡 Dive into cutting-edge plant science and discover how researchers are tackling climate challenges!

All of the articles published in our journal are in an open access format, offering our readers free and unlimited...

07/08/2025

Visit the Nutrients2026 official website here:
https://sciforum.net/event/Nutrients2026?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social_paid&utm_campaign=web_announce

Join us to advance nutrient research and make an impact!

The session topics of this conference include:
- Personalized nutrition based on diet-gene interactions
- Innovations in clinical nutrition
- Novel dietary recommendations for specific chronic diseases
- Understanding the role of microbiota in clinical practice
- The potential role of AI in clinical practice
- Lifestyle and prevention of chronic diseases

📆 Conference Date: 22 – 24 October 2026

We look forward to your invaluable participation and engagement at Nutrients 2026: Clinical Nutrition: from Research to Practice.

For inquiry: [email protected]

31/07/2025

🌟 + Editor’s Choice 🌟

Can carotenoids help manage metabolic disorders?

A comprehensive review by Ortega-Regules et al. explores the therapeutic potential of natural carotenoids like lycopene, lutein, and fucoxanthin in tackling obesity, insulin resistance, and more.

🧪 From antioxidant effects to encapsulation strategies for better stability and bioavailability—this paper covers it all.

📖 Recent Advances in the Therapeutic Potential of Carotenoids in Preventing and Managing Metabolic Disorders
✍️ Ana E. Ortega-Regules, Juan Alonso Martínez-Thomas, Karen Schürenkämper-Carrillo, Cecilia Anaya de Parrodi, Edgar R. López-Mena, Jorge L. Mejía-Méndez & J. Daniel Lozada-Ramírez

🔗 Read the full article: https://brnw.ch/21wUz4d

Carotenoids constitute compounds of significant biological interest due to their multiple biological activities, such as antimicrobial, anticancer, antiadipogenic, antidiabetic, and antioxidant properties. Metabolic syndrome (MetS) comprehends a series of metabolic abnormalities (e.g., hypertension,...

21/07/2025

🌿 Drought stress vs. photosynthesis—who wins?

A highly cited Plants review unpacks how drought disrupts photosynthesis in major food crops, from damaging chloroplasts to triggering photorespiration and oxidative stress.

💡 But plants fight back!
They deploy NPQ, alternative electron pathways, hormonal signals (like ABA), and structural adaptations to stay productive even under extreme water deficits.

This review is a must-read for researchers working on drought-tolerant crops and climate-smart agriculture.

📖 Impacts of Drought on Photosynthesis in Major Food Crops and the Related Mechanisms of Plant Responses to Drought
✍️ Meiyu Qiao, Conghao Hong, Yongjuan Jiao, Sijia Hou & Hongbo Gao

🔗 Read the full article: https://brnw.ch/21wUiB3

Drought stress is one of the most critical threats to crop productivity and global food security. This review addresses the multiple effects of drought on the process of photosynthesis in major food crops. Affecting both light-dependent and light-independent reactions, drought leads to severe damage...

18/06/2025

🌿 Great news from Plants MDPI!

📊 Our Journal Impact Factor has increased to 4.1!

We're also proud to share that Plants now ranks in Q1 in the “Plant Sciences” category (45 out of 273).

This achievement reflects the outstanding contributions and collaboration of our authors, reviewers, editors, and readers — thank you for your continued trust and support 🤝

As we celebrate this milestone, we remain dedicated to publishing innovative, high-quality research and to strengthening our role as a trusted open-access platform for the global plant science community.

🔗 Discover our latest articles and Special Issues: https://brnw.ch/21wTuGB

Plants, an international, peer-reviewed Open Access journal.

17/06/2025

🌟 Featured Article: & Editor’s Choice!

📖 "CRISPR/Cas9-Mediated Knockout of the Lycopene ε-Cyclase for Efficient Astaxanthin Production in the Green Microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii"

✍️ Jacob Sebastian Kneip, Niklas Kniepkamp, Junhwan Jang, Maria Grazia Mortaro, EonSeon Jin, Olaf Kruse, and Thomas Baier

🔗 Read the article: https://brnw.ch/21wTsSy

🔬 This high-impact study showcases the power of targeted genome editing in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to enhance astaxanthin biosynthesis, a valuable ketocarotenoid with applications in nutraceuticals and aquaculture. By knocking out lycopene ε-cyclase (LCYE), the authors redirected carotenoid flux, suppressing lutein biosynthesis and boosting β-carotene levels. Further metabolic engineering—via iterative overexpression of CrBKT, PacrtB, and CrCHYB—achieved a 2.3-fold increase in astaxanthin yield. This work highlights how CRISPR/Cas9 and rational pathway engineering can convert microalgae into efficient green biofactories.

Carotenoids are valuable pigments naturally occurring in all photosynthetic plants and microalgae as well as in selected fungi, bacteria, and archaea. Green microalgae developed a complex carotenoid profile suitable for efficient light harvesting and light protection and harbor great capacity for ca...

13/06/2025

🚀

📖 Tools and Techniques to Accelerate Crop Breeding
✍️ Krystal Williams, Mayavan Subramani, Lily W. Lofton, Miranda Penney, Antonette Todd, and Gulnihal Ozbay

🔗 Read the full article: https://brnw.ch/21wTnwZ

🌾 Meeting global food demands requires faster, smarter crop breeding. This highly viewed review explores cutting-edge tools—like speed breeding, CRISPR-Cas9, genomic selection, and epigenomic strategies—that are transforming how quickly and efficiently new cultivars can be developed. A must-read for those working at the intersection of innovation and agriculture.