Plants, being sessile, have developed complex signaling and response mechanisms to cope with biotic and abiotic stressors. Recent investigations have revealed the significant contribution of phytohormones in enabling plants to endure unfavorable conditions. Among these phytohormones, jasmonic acid (JA) and its derivatives, collectively referred to as jasmonates (JAs), are of particular importance and are involved in diverse signal transduction pathways to regulate various physiological and molecular processes in plants, thus protecting plants from the lethal impacts of abiotic and biotic stressors. Jasmonic acid has emerged as a central player in plant defense against biotic stress and in alleviating multiple abiotic stressors in plants, such as drought, salinity, vernalization, and heavy metal exposure. Furthermore, as a growth regulator, JA operates in conjunction with other phytohormones through a complex signaling cascade to balance plant growth and development against stresses. Although studies have reported the intricate nature of JA as a biomolecular entity for the mitigation of abiotic stressors, their underlying mechanism and biosynthetic pathways remain poorly understood. Therefore, this review offers an overview of recent progress made in understanding the biosynthesis of JA, elucidates the complexities of its signal transduction pathways, and emphasizes its pivotal role in mitigating abiotic and biotic stressors. Moreover, we also discuss current issues and future research directions for JAs in plant stress responses.

Agriculture is directly linked to human life, providing food for survival and health. It is threatened by a number of challenges, such as climate change, resource depletion, and abiotic stresses, including heavy metals (HMs), salinity, drought, etc. Various strategies have been employed to palliate the phytotoxic effects of these stressors from the soil–plant system. Nanotechnological approaches have emerged as a promising tool for increasing crop productivity and promoting sustainable agriculture. Interestingly, the seed nano-priming approach has shown potential against all of the above-mentioned abiotic stress factors and has improved crop productivity. The application of nanoparticles (NPs) via seed priming is an innovative and cost-effective approach that improves seed germination and subsequent plant growth by activating plant physiological processes and providing tolerance against various stresses. The seed priming with NPs induces electron exchange and increases surface reaction capabilities related to plant cell and tissue components. This review aims to provide an overview of recent advances and research findings on seed nano-priming and the possible mechanism of plant stress-tolerance augmentation against various stresses. Furthermore, we also shed light on gaps in studies conducted in previous years, which will open new avenues for future research.

Rhizosphere microbiome is a dynamic and complex zone of microbial communities. This complex plant-associated microbial community, usually regarded as the plant’s second genome, plays a crucial role in plant health. It is unquestioned that plant microbiome collectively contributes to plant growth and fitness. It also provides a safeguard from plant pathogens, and induces tolerance in the host against abiotic stressors. The revolution in omics, gene-editing and sequencing tools have somehow led to unravel the compositions and latent interactions between plants and microbes. Similarly, besides standard practices, many biotechnological, (bio)chemical and ecological methods have also been proposed. Such platforms have been solely dedicated to engineer the complex microbiome by untangling the potential barriers, and to achieve better agriculture output. Yet, several limitations, for example, the biological obstacles, abiotic constraints and molecular tools that capably impact plant microbiome engineering and functionality, remained unaddressed problems. In this review, we provide a holistic overview of plant microbiome composition, complexities, and major challenges in plant microbiome engineering. Then, we unearthed all inevitable abiotic factors that serve as bottlenecks by discouraging plant microbiome engineering and functionality. Lastly, by exploring the inherent role of micro/macrofauna, we propose economic and eco-friendly strategies that could be harnessed sustainably and biotechnologically for resilient plant microbiome engineering.

Drought is a persistent and devastating obstacle to crop production, affecting both humanity and livestock. The application of selenium (Se) effectively mitigates various types of abiotic stresses and enhances crop yield under unfavorable conditions. However, our understanding of how nano-Se (nSe) alleviates drought stress (DS) in soybeans is still limited. To address this gap, our study focused on assessing the effectiveness of foliar nSe application during the reproductive stage of soybeans. Three concentrations of nSe were applied to plants grown in pots filled with clay loam soil, simulating DS conditions. Our findings reveal that nSe spraying significantly promoted the accumulation of above-ground dry biomass and enhanced relative water content (RWC) and photosynthetic pigment over alone-DS treatment. Furthermore, nSe application boosted the activity and contents of protective enzymes and osmolytes, resulting in a dose-dependent reduction in electrolyte leakage (EL), reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation, and malondialdehyde (MDA) content. Additionally, nSe improved stomatal characteristics and mesophyll cell ultrastructure, further mitigating the adverse effects of drought stress. These findings suggest the potential of nSe as an effective strategy to enhance soybean tolerance and potentially improve crop yields under drought conditions.

In recent decades, global climate change and heavy metal stress have severely affected plant growth and biomass, which has led to a serious threat to food safety and human health. Anthropogenic activities, the rapid pace of urbanization, and the use of modern agricultural technologies have further aggravated environmental conditions, resulting in limited crop growth and productivity. This review highlights the various adaptive transcriptomic responses of plants to tolerate detrimental environmental conditions, such as drought, salinity, and heavy metal contamination. These stresses hinder plant growth and development by disrupting their physiological and biochemical processes by inducing oxidative stress, nutritional imbalance, and osmotic disturbance, and by deteriorating their photosynthetic machinery. Plants have developed different strategies to safeguard themselves against the toxic effects of these environmental stresses. They stimulate their secondary messenger to activate cell signaling, and they trigger other numerous transcriptomic responses associated with plant defense mechanisms. Therefore, the recent advances in biological sciences, such as transcriptomics, metabolomics, and proteomics, have assisted our understanding of the stress-tolerant strategies adopted by plants, which could be further utilized to breed tolerant species. This review summarizes the stress-tolerant strategies of crops by covering the role of transcriptional factors in plants.