Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) is a globally important energy and food crop that is becoming increasingly integral to food security and the environment. However, its production is significantly hampered by various fungal phytopathogens that affect its yield and quality. This review aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of the major fungal phytopathogens affecting sorghum, their impact, current management strategies, and potential future directions. The major diseases covered include anthracnose, grain mold complex, charcoal rot, downy mildew, and rust, with an emphasis on their pathogenesis, symptomatology, and overall economic, social, and environmental impacts. From the initial use of fungicides to the shift to biocontrol, crop rotation, intercropping, and modern tactics of breeding resistant cultivars against mentioned diseases are discussed. In addition, this review explores the future of disease management, with a particular focus on the role of technology, including digital agriculture, predictive modeling, remote sensing, and IoT devices, in early warning, detection, and disease management. It also provide key policy recommendations to support farmers and advance research on disease management, thus emphasizing the need for increased investment in research, strengthening extension services, facilitating access to necessary inputs, and implementing effective regulatory policies. The review concluded that although fungal phytopathogens pose significant challenges, a combined effort of technology, research, innovative disease management, and effective policies can significantly mitigate these issues, enhance the resilience of sorghum production to facilitate global food security issues.

Cytochrome P450 enzymes (CYPs) are widely distributed among various plant groups and constitute approximately 1% of the total number of protein-coding genes. Extensive studies suggest that CYPs are involved in nearly all molecular processes that occur in plants. Over the past two decades, the identification of CYP genes has expanded rapidly, with more than 40,000 CYP genes and 819 CYP families being discovered. Copy number variation is a significant evolutionary characteristic of gene families, yet a systematic characterization of the copy evolution patterns in plant CYP gene families has been lacking, resulting in confusion and challenges in understanding CYP functions. To address these concerns, this review provides comprehensive statistics and analyses of the copy number and diversity of almost all plant CYP gene families, focusing on CYP evolution from Chlorophyta to Dicotyledoneae. Additionally, we examined the subfamily characteristics of certain CYP families with restricted copy changes and identified several CYP subfamilies that play pivotal roles in this event. Furthermore, we analyzed the structural conservation of CYPs across different taxa and compiled a comprehensive database to support plant CYP studies. Our analysis revealed differences in the six core conserved motifs of plant CYP proteins among various clans and plant taxa, while demonstrating similar conservation patterns for the ERR (glutamic acid-arginine-arginine) triad motifs. These findings will significantly facilitate the understanding of plant CYP gene evolution and metabolic diversity and serve as a valuable reference for researchers studying CYP enzymes.

Climate-related problems such as drought stress, extreme temperature, erratic rainfall patterns, soil degradation, heatwaves, flooding, water logging, pests and diseases afflict the production and sustainability of sorghum. These challenges may be addressed by adopting climate-resilient practices and using advanced agronomic techniques. These challenges are being addressed through innovative applications of plant biotechnology and microbiology, which offer targeted solutions to enhance sorghum's resilience. For instance, biotechnological tools like CRISPR/Cas9 enable precise genetic modifications to improve drought and heat tolerance, while microbial inoculants, such as plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), enhance nutrient uptake and stress tolerance through symbiotic interactions. However, biotechnological tools lead to the development of sorghum varieties with heat, drought and salinity tolerance, while marker-assisted selection significantly accelerates breeding for stress-resilient traits. When genetic engineering is introduced, genes encoding heat shock proteins, Osmo protectants and antioxidant pathways are introduced to increase plant resistance to abiotic stress. These compounds stabilise cellular structures, protect enzymes, and maintain osmotic balance, enhancing the plant's ability to survive and function in adverse environmental conditions. At the same time, it is reported that microbiology offers beneficial microbes, nitrogen-fixing bacteria, phosphate-solubilizing microorganisms, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi that help enhance nutrient availability, soil health and water uptake. Combinations of endophytes and microbial inoculants enhance plant immunity to pests and diseases while increasing tolerance to stress. Biocontrol agents such as Bacillus and Trichoderma contain suppression of pathogens and need less dependence on the use of chemical pesticides. On top of that, genetic modification increases the nutritional quality of sorghum biofortified. This is where biotechnology and microbiology work together to deliver sustainable farming systems reducing environmental impacts, boosting yields and securing food supply under environmental stresses. This review aims to examine the synergistic integration of plant biotechnology and microbial interactions as a strategy to enhance sorghum's resilience to climate-induced stresses, including drought, elevated temperatures, and nutrient-deficient soils. It highlights recent advancements in biotechnological tools such as gene editing, marker-assisted selection, and tissue culture, alongside the emerging role of plant-beneficial microbes in promoting stress tolerance and improving soil health. By synthesizing current knowledge across these disciplines, this review seeks to outline a framework for future research that harnesses the intersection of biotechnology and microbial ecology to support the sustainable improvement of sorghum resilience.

Wheat provides staple food and industrial raw material for humans and animals, but its production decreased due to leaf rust (Lr) disease caused by Puccinia triticina by up to 15%. It is challenging to identify Lr-associated genes due to the limited sample size and large genome, which hinders the breeding efforts for Lr disease. This study integrated RNA-seq data to mine the candidate genes using meta-analysis, WGCNA, and machine-learning approaches. As a result, 2153 upregulated and 1579 downregulated meta-differentially expressed genes (meta-DEGs) were identified, with four known genes (Lr13 and Lr67/Yr46/Sr55). The meta-DEGs were significantly enriched in antifungal innate immune response, glutathione metabolism, detoxification, phenylalanine, and flavonoid biosynthesis. Among these, 124 resistance (R) genes (~ 85.48% upregulated) were expressed differentially, and ~ 80% belonged to plant pattern recognition receptors (PPRs) that triggered immunity. Likewise, 162 transcription factors (TFs), including WRKY (43), ERF (30), and MYB (33), were associated with Lr disease, and 81 candidate hub genes were co-expressed for Lr. Finally, nine potential candidate genes, including TraesCS7A03G0388400 (BSP), TraesCS1A03G0869900 (PR4), TraesCS6B03G1228800 (AP2/ERF), TraesCS3B03G0088700 (MYB62), TraesCS5A03G1198800 (CYP96A10), and TraesCSU03G0129300 (LTP4), were mined via attribute weighting and machine learning model (XGBoost AUC = 0.97 and accuracy = 0.90) and validated via single-gene model, linear regression, and t-test at p ≤ 0.05. The relative expressions calculated via RT-qPCR assay of nine genes were significantly higher at different time points under Lr infection. Thus, this study reported genes under Lr infection using advanced bioinformatics and supervised machine-learning models, which provide fundamental insight and a solid foundation for understanding the molecular mechanisms of Lr resistance and offer an advanced pipeline for future breeding programs to develop superior cultivars with durable resistance.