Agricultural production and quality are adversely affected by various abiotic stresses worldwide and this will be exacerbated by the deterioration of global climate. To feed a growing world population, it is very urgent to breed stress-tolerant crops with higher yields and improved qualities against multiple environmental stresses. Since conventional breeding approaches had marginal success due to the complexity of stress tolerance traits, the transgenic approach is now being popularly used to breed stress-tolerant crops. So identifying and characterizing the the critical genes involved in plant stress responses is an essential prerequisite for engineering stress-tolerant crops. Far beyond the manipulation of single functional gene, engineering certain regulatory genes has emerged as an effective strategy now for controlling the expression of many stress-responsive genes. Transcription factors (TFs) are good candidates for genetic engineering to breed stress-tolerant crop because of their role as master regulators of many stress-responsive genes. Many TFs belonging to families AP2/EREBP, MYB, WRKY, NAC, bZIP have been found to be involved in various abiotic stresses and some TF genes have also been engineered to improve stress tolerance in model and crop plants. In this review, we take five large families of TFs as examples and review the recent progress of TFs involved in plant abiotic stress responses and their potential utilization to improve multiple stress tolerance of crops in the field conditions.

Vacuolar Na⁺/H⁺ antiporters (NHXs) play an important role in plant salt tolerance and a large number of NHX genes have been identified in many plant species. In this study, we isolated and characterized a novel vacuolar-type KvNHX1 cDNA from the halophyte Kosteletzkya virginica. It is 2047 bp long, with an open reading frame of 1632 bp, encoding a protein of 543 amino acids with a theoretical molecular weight of 60.03 kDa. Bioinformatics and phylogenetic analysis showed that it was highly similar to the known vacuolar-type NHXs, especially with 92% identity with GhNHX1 of Gossypium hirsutum from the same Malvaceae family. Quantitative RT-PCR showed that the expression analysis of KvNHX1was significantly increased by NaCl, abscisic acid (ABA) and polyethylene glycol (PEG), but its expression levels and patterns differed under different abiotic stresses, implying that KvNHX1 might be involved in various abiotic stress responses. In addition, overexpression of KvNHX1 enhanced the salt tolerance in transgenic tobacco lines with better growth, more chlorophyll, higher antioxidant enzyme activities and osmoregulation capability by accumulating more proline, Na⁺ and K⁺ in the leaves than the wild type under salt stress. Our result suggested that KvNHX1 may have potential use for improving the salt tolerance of plants via genetic engineering.

The extraction process of crude polysaccharides from Agrocybe aegerita was optimized, and the antioxidant and anti-aging effects of the crude polysaccharides were evaluated. The optimal extraction parameters for the polysaccharide were identified using the response surface methodology. The DPPH, hydroxy radical, and superoxide anion radical scavenging capacities were evaluated to determine the antioxidant properties of the AAPs. The effects of the AAPs on the lifespan, head-swing frequency, swallowing frequency, body-bending frequency, and stress resistance of Caenorhabditis elegans were determined. The optimal extraction conditions included a solid-to-liquid ratio that resulted in an extraction solution concentration of 0.034 g/mL, an extraction temperature of 92.64 °C, and an extraction time of 2.82 h. Under these conditions, the yield of the AAPs was 11.325% ± 0.996%. The IC50 of the AAPs for superoxide anion radical scavenging was 4.693 mg/mL. The AAPs reached their maximum activity at concentrations of about 2 mg/mL for DPPH and 5 mg/mL for the hydroxyl radical. The AAPs could prolong the lifespan and improve locomotion and the stress resistance of C. elegans. Our findings illustrate the potential of AAPs as an anti-aging and antioxidant agent, highlighting the use of this natural compound in the fields of food and pharmacology.

Lentinula edodes (L. edodes) is a significant edible and medicinal mushroom with essential nutrient elements for its growth, including Fe²⁺, K⁺, and Mn²⁺. However, the molecular mechanisms by which these metal ions regulate the mycelial growth of L. edodes have been poorly elucidated at the transcriptomic level. In this study, plate culture was performed using concentration gradients to screen for optimal concentrations. Based on the plate culture assay results, L. edodes strain 1303 was treated with 40 μg/mL Fe²⁺, 1200 μg/mL K⁺, and 50 μg/mL Mn²⁺, with a control group (CK) without additional metal ion supplementation. Three biological replicates were set for each treatment, and the mycelia were collected for transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq). The results showed that Fe²⁺ at concentrations above 20 µg/mL significantly inhibited mycelial growth; K⁺ at 1200 µg/mL and Mn²⁺ at 50 µg/mL significantly promoted mycelial growth, with increases in mycelial growth radius on day 7 of 21.22% and 10.77%, respectively, compared with the control group (p < 0.05). Transcriptomic analysis revealed that Fe²⁺ was associated with impaired protein folding-related functions and suppressed material and energy metabolism, which may contribute to the inhibition of mycelial growth. Mycelial growth promotion by K⁺ was associated with enhanced detoxification and secondary metabolism, as well as suggested enrichment of mitochondrial function and the oxidative phosphorylation pathway. Mn²⁺ may contribute to mycelial growth via mechanisms related to DNA repair and recombination, cell cycle progression, and detoxification. This study elucidates the differential gene expression patterns and regulatory effects of the three exogenous metal ions on the mycelial growth of L. edodes at the transcriptomic level, offering a rationale basis for mineral nutrition optimization during the mycelial stage. However, these interpretations are based on transcriptomic data only and lack direct evidence from ion uptake, proteomic, or metabolomic validation. Future studies will focus on validating these results through multilevel omics and functional experiments.