Wound healing is a complicated process, and the effective management of wounds is a major challenge. Natural herbal remedies have now become fundamental for the management of skin disorders and the treatment of skin infections due to the side effects of modern medicine and lower price for herbal products. The aim of the present study is to summarize the most recent in vitro, in vivo, and clinical studies on major herbal preparations, their phytochemical constituents, and new formulations for wound management. Research reveals that several herbal medicaments have marked activity in the management of wounds and that this activity is ascribed to flavonoids, alkaloids, saponins, and phenolic compounds. These phytochemicals can act at different stages of the process by means of various mechanisms, including anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antioxidant, collagen synthesis stimulating, cell proliferation, and angiogenic effects. The application of natural compounds using nanotechnology systems may provide significant improvement in the efficacy of wound treatments. Increasing the clinical use of these therapies would require safety assessment in clinical trials.

The genetic basis underlying the phenotype of purple tomatoes guides an understanding of these varieties which were introduced over 10 years ago.

Water deficit conditions trigger the production of a chemical signal, the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA), which coordinates multiple responses at different temporal and spatial scales. Despite the complexity of natural drought conditions, the modulation of ABA signaling could be harnessed to ameliorate the drought performances of crops in the face of increasingly challenging climate conditions. Based on recent studies, increasing ABA sensitivity can lead to genotypes with improved drought resistance traits, with sustained biomass production in water-limiting environments and little or no costs with respect to biomass production under optimal conditions. However, variations in ABA production and sensitivity lead to changes in various aspects of reproductive development, including flowering time. Here we provide an updated summary of the literature on ABA-related genes in tomato and discuss how their manipulation can impact water-deficit-related responses and/or other developmental traits. We suggest that a better understanding of specific ABA components’ function or their expression may offer novel tools to specifically engineer drought resistance without affecting developmental traits.

Under climate change, yield stability depends heavily on the ability to develop resilient crops, better adapted to water scarcity. Studies in model systems have uncovered molecular pathways and genes that potentiate the plant response to environmental stress. CRISPR‐based editing technologies enable the precise and rapid transfer of beneficial traits from model species to crops. Previous work identified Solanum lycopersicon MYB60 (SlMYB60 ) as the functional ortholog of the Arabidopsis guard cell‐related AtMYB60 transcription factor. Loss of AtMYB60 function results in reduced stomatal opening and enhanced stress resistance, providing a valuable target for crop improvement. Here, we report the CRISPR‐mediated exploitation of SlMYB60 in two tomato commercial varieties. Unexpectedly, editing of SlMYB60 did not result in reduced stomatal opening and enhanced stress resistance. Independent edited lines showed increased stomatal size, enhanced leaf water loss, and cuticle permeability. RNAseq analyses revealed that the expression of genes involved in cell wall and cuticle metabolism was altered in the edited lines. Scanning electron microscope analysis of leaf epidermis revealed defects in cuticle deposition and in the formation of outer cuticle ledges. As opposed to the guard cell‐specific activity of the AtMYB60 promoter, we found that the SlMYB60 promoter was active in both stomata and epidermal cells. Our findings indicate functional divergence between AtMYB60 and SlMYB60 , providing valuable insights into species‐specific regulatory mechanisms and emphasizing the complexities of translating gene‐editing strategies across plant systems.

Plants align flowering with optimal seasonal conditions to increase reproductive success. This process depends on modulating signalling pathways that respond to diverse environmental and hormonal inputs, thereby regulating the transition to flowering at the shoot apical meristem. In Arabidopsis , long-day photoperiods (LDs) stimulate the transcription of FLOWERING LOCUS T ( FT ), encoding the main florigenic signal. FT activation is mediated by the transcriptional regulator CONSTANS (CO), which binds to the CO responsive elements (COREs) located in the proximal FT promoter region. The phytohormone abscisic acid also (ABA) contributes to FT activation together with GIGANTEA (GI) to regulate drought escape (DE). Whether CO is a target of ABA and GI actions for the regulation of FT is, however, unknown. Here, we report that ABA and its signalling components promote CO recruitment to the CORE1/2, without causing reductions in the diel pattern of CO protein accumulation. ChIPseq analyses show that ABA broadly shapes the CO DNA binding landscape, which is enriched at the promoters of genes involved in the response to abiotic stress. We also found that GI promotes CO recruitment to the CORE1/2 region, and that CO recruitment is required for the accumulation of RNAPol II at the transcription start site of FT . Finally, we show that GI and ABA signalling pathways are largely epistatic in the control of flowering time, suggesting their involvement in the same molecular process. Taken together, these observations suggest that varying water deficit conditions modulate CO recruitment and FT expression, thus dictating DE strategies in Arabidopsis . Highlight: ABA and GIGANTEA signalling promote FLOWERING LOCUS T ( FT ) transcriptional activation by regulating the binding of the transcription factor CONSTANS to the proximal FT promoter.