Molecular and Gene Expression in Plants Under Climate Change and Urban Environment

The sessile plants must reprogram themselves physiologically, metabolically, and at the molecular level to overcome the impacts of changing climatic conditions. Climatic adversities such as drought, salinity, elevated CO2, and elevated temperatures may occur independently or more often in combination. Numerous studies indicate that plants, including crucial crops, mobilize their starch reserves to release sugars, energy, and related metabolites, aiding in stress mitigation. Maintaining ion homeostasis and mineral uptake is vital for plants under stress, with various mechanisms employed to regulate homeostasis. Urban environments compound these difficulties, further impeding plant survival and growth. The diminishing number of plant species resilient to climate and urban conditions directly results from escalating stresses. Recent studies have effectively harnessed ‘omic’ methodologies to uncover interconnected transcriptional, proteomic, and metabolic networks associated with stress perception and response. These investigations have extended beyond the model plant Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) to encompass various crop, garden, and woody species. Plants sense and respond to these climate adversities at phenological, physiological, metabolical, and molecular levels. At the transcriptomic level, changes can be observed in photosynthesis, photorespiration, light-harvesting complex, electron transport, genes linked to cellulose synthesis, carbon metabolism, glycolysis, and starch-sucrose metabolism. However, future research directions appear to be more challenging due to the unpredictable changes in our global climate. It is still a significant task to establish a complete predictive model that would enable us to easily examine the complex biological networks involved in plant responses to coupled climate change problems. A model like this would provide insightful information and help crop plants become more resilient to changing weather patterns. Ultimately, this might help us get closer to sustainable agriculture, guaranteeing the ability of food, fiber, fuel, oil, and other necessary agricultural plants to withstand changing environmental conditions.