The worldwide agriculture industry is facing increasing problems due to rapid population increase and increasingly unfavorable weather patterns. In order to reach the projected food production targets, which are essential for guaranteeing global food security, innovative and sustainable agricultural methods must be adopted. Conventional approaches, including traditional breeding procedures, often cannot handle the complex and simultaneous effects of biotic pressures such as pest infestations, disease attacks, and nutritional imbalances, as well as abiotic stresses including heat, salt, drought, and heavy metal toxicity. Applying phytohormonal approaches, particularly those involving hormonal crosstalk, presents a viable way to increase crop resilience in this context. Abscisic acid (ABA), gibberellins (GAs), auxin, cytokinins, salicylic acid (SA), jasmonic acid (JA), ethylene, and GA are among the plant hormones that control plant stress responses. In order to precisely respond to a range of environmental stimuli, these hormones allow plants to control gene expression, signal transduction, and physiological adaptation through intricate networks of antagonistic and constructive interactions. This review focuses on how the principal hormonal signaling pathways (in particular, ABA-ET, ABA-JA, JA-SA, and ABA-auxin) intricately interact and how they affect the plant stress response. For example, ABA-driven drought tolerance controls immunological responses and stomatal behavior through antagonistic interactions with ET and SA, while using SnRK2 kinases to activate genes that react to stress. Similarly, the transcription factor MYC2 is an essential node in ABA–JA crosstalk and mediates the integration of defense and drought signals. Plants’ complex hormonal crosstalk networks are an example of a precisely calibrated regulatory system that strikes a balance between growth and abiotic stress adaptation. ABA, JA, SA, ethylene, auxin, cytokinin, GA, and BR are examples of central nodes that interact dynamically and context-specifically to modify signal transduction, rewire gene expression, and change physiological outcomes. To engineer stress-resilient crops in the face of shifting environmental challenges, a systems-level view of these pathways is provided by a combination of enrichment analyses and STRING-based interaction mapping. These hormonal interactions are directly related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDGs 2 (Zero Hunger), 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and 13 (Climate Action). This review emphasizes the potential of biotechnologies to use hormone signaling to improve agricultural performance and sustainability by uncovering the molecular foundations of hormonal crosstalk. Increasing our understanding of these pathways presents a strategic opportunity to increase crop resilience, reduce environmental degradation, and secure food systems in the face of increasing climate unpredictability.

Plant diseases reduce agricultural productivity worldwide, and this decline is further accelerated by climate variability, monoculture cultivation systems, and the excessive use of synthetic agrochemicals. Overuse of chemical (synthetic) pesticides in agriculture results in ecological stress, including loss of beneficial microbes. As a solution, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are viable natural alternative to antibiotics and pesticides, due to their potent, broad-spectrum, and targeted properties, as well as their low susceptibility to the development of resistance. As small cationic amphipathic molecules found in plants, animals, and microorganisms, these AMPs are known to modulate membrane permeabilisation, disrupt intracellular systems, and stimulate the immune response. The AMP defence system depends on the highly interconnected gene network that supports efficient signal transmission and tightly coordinated gene clusters that support systematic responses to pathogen attack. These molecules can be considered as attractive biocidal agents due to their ability to target microbial membranes and cause rapid cell death, thereby having potential as broad-spectrum biocontrol agents against bacteria, fungi, and viruses. AMPs are also effective against multidrug-resistant pathogens. In plants, AMP families such as defensins, thionins, cyclotides, LTPs (lipid transfer proteins), snakins, and hevein-like peptides act as constitutive “natural antibiotics” which are involved in activating defensive signalling cascades upon pathogen infection. Microbial AMPs, such as bacteriocins, suppress pathogenic and spoilage bacteria by forming pores and inhibiting cell wall synthesis. At the same time, lipopeptides promote beneficial biofilms and plant defence pathways without direct toxicity. Progress in molecular biology, computational modelling, and synthetic biology has revealed the discovery, engineering, and optimisation of AMPs for agriculture. This review summarises the mechanisms of antibiotic mimicry by AMPs and discusses their structural and functional diversity, as well as their potential applications in sustainable plant disease management. The present study also evaluated AMPs as an alternative to chemical pesticides and antimicrobial agents, offering an environmentally compatible, durable, and efficient approach to preventing plant diseases.

1. This study has reported standardization of pathogenicity assay of Ralstonia solancearum in eggplant seedlings by root inoculation approach. Though the approach is similar to my earlier published work that done with tomato seedlings, in case of eggplant, duration of the seed germination, age of the seedlings, symptom timing and progression rate of the disease are different. In an introductory observation, R. solanacearum F1C1 inoculation was performed in to 10-12 days old eggplant seedlings resulted in lethal infection in eggplant seedlings and subsequently most of these infected seedlings got wilted within 10 days of post-inoculation. Colonization studies of R. solanacearum in wilted as well as infected eggplant seedlings were confirmed by GUS staining as well as fluorescence microscopy. In addition, we also observed that wrapping of the eggplant seedlings root by a thin layer of cotton soon after the pathogen inoculation in the root, enhanced the disease progression and wilting of the inoculated seedlings. The standardized root inoculation protocol in eggplant seedlings was found to be efficient to distinguish mutant strains of different virulence genes such as hrpB, phcA and pilT from wild-type R. solanacearum . Due to its reproducibility and consistency in different eggplant cultivars, the standardized protocol described here is practically observed as an useful and rapid approach to investigate R. solanacearum pathogenicity and disease progression at the early seedling stage of eggplant.

The current worldwide agricultural sector is facing an unprecedented number of challenges from climate change and the global warming era. To overcome such daunting challenges in agriculture, advanced nano-engineering is one of the emerging tools for boosting required crop production, plant growth promotion, and other areas of the plant system. Due to rigorous research in recent years, graphene nanomaterials have been found to be excellent and effective regulator tools for enhancing plant growth, crop yield, and related stability. An appropriate amount of treatment of graphene nanomaterial has interestingly shown many positive effects on plants, such as increasing the root length, leaf area, number of leaves, and the formation of flower buds. This review has tried to summarize the fate and biological effects of graphene nanoparticles in plants and has emphasized presenting an overview of applications of these nanomaterials in the agriculture sector for enhanced crop yield. <!----> <!----> <!----> <!---->

Unsafe water sources contaminated with fecal bacteria and antibiotic-resistant pathogens represent a critical public health challenge in rapidly urbanizing regions. This study investigates the occurrence, distribution, and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) patterns of Escherichia coli across interconnected water sources in Guwahati, India, including river water, wells, municipal supply, and groundwater. A total of 87 samples were analyzed using membrane filtration, biochemical identification, and automated confirmation, followed by antibiotic susceptibility testing and phenotypic detection of β-lactamase production. Total coliforms were detected in 64.4% of samples, while E. coli was confirmed in 51.7%. According to World Health Organization risk thresholds, 93.3% of river water samples and 50% of groundwater samples fell within the very-high-risk category (>1000 CFU/100 mL), indicating widespread fecal contamination in sources used for domestic purposes. Antibiotic-resistant E. coli was identified across all water types, with 14.1% of isolates exhibiting multidrug resistance (MAR index > 0.2). Notably, 20.6% of isolates produced β-lactamases, including one extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) producer, while no carbapenemase-producing strains were detected. The co-occurrence of multidrug-resistant E. coli across surface and groundwater systems is consistent with the interconnected nature of urban water contamination and suggests the potential for widespread exposure through drinking water pathways, though direct transfer between water systems was not experimentally confirmed in this study. These findings underscore the urgent need for improved wastewater management, protection of groundwater resources, and strengthened antibiotic stewardship within a One Health framework to mitigate the environmental dissemination of AMR.