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Call for papers - Plants and their pathogens

Guest Editors:
BMC Biology:
Maya Bar: ARO, Volcani Institute, Israel
Helen Fones: University of Exeter, UK
Sam Periyannan: University of Southern Queensland, Australia

BMC Microbiology:
Olubukola Oluranti Babalola: North-West University, South Africa
Manoj Kumar Solanki: University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland
Alok K Srivastava: National Bureau of Agriculturally Important Microorganisms, India
Manoj Kr Tripathi: Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, India

BMC Plant Biology:
Andreia Cristina Figueiredo: Science Faculty of Lisbon University, Portugal
Ravi Gupta: Kookmin University, South Korea
Aiping Song: Nanjing Agricultural University, China

Submission Status: Open   |   Submission Deadline: 31 January 2024


New Content ItemBMC Biology together with BMC Plant Biology and BMC Microbiology announce the launch of the collection ‘Plants and their Pathogens’, for which we invite submissions of manuscripts relevant to the research topic. We invite submissions on all aspects of plant-pathogen interactions with studies that focus on either the individual host or the pathogen as well as those that map their interactions. This collection welcomes research articles and any methods that researchers wish to establish in this exciting and growing field. 

Each participating journal is editorially independent. Please submit directly to the relevant journal, stating in your cover letter that the submission refers to the collection ‘Plants and their Pathogens’.

Submit to the collection

BMC Biology
BMC Microbiology
BMC Plant Biology

Meet the Guest Editors

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Maya Bar: ARO, Volcani Institute, Israel (BMC Biology)

Dr Maya Bar has a dual background in plant development and immunity. Located at the Agricultural Research Organization- Volcani Institute in Israel, the Bar lab is comprised of a diverse group of individuals conducting collaborative basic and applied research of the plant immune system. We investigate immunity priming, development-defense trade-offs, and chemical and organismal biocontrol of plant disease. Main concepts in the lab include manipulation of immunity priming to generate plants with constitutively "ON" immune responses, resulting in broad-spectrum resistance, and research into development-defense tradeoffs with the hope of "hacking" these processes to prevent yield loss.

Helen Fones: University of Exeter, UK (BMC Biology)

Helen Fones is a UKRI future leader's fellow based at the University of Exeter.  Her research programme looks at epiphytic colonisation of leaf surfaces during early infection of wheat by the fungal pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici, using a mix of microscopy, genomics, and metabolomics. She gained her DPhil in plant pathology from the University of Oxford in 2011. She then obtained a POINT fellowship at the Freie Universität, Berlin, before taking up a postdoctoral research position in Exeter in 2013. She began her FLF in 2020. Helen is passionate about improving research culture and has keen interests in career development for early career researchers and in equality, diversity and inclusivity in research.

Sam Periyannan: University of Southern Queensland, Australia (BMC Biology)

Sambasivam (Sam) Periyannan is an Associate Professor at the University of Southern Queensland and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Queensland, Australia. After completing his PhD at the University of Sydney, Sam started his scientific career as a postdoctoral fellow at CSIRO, where he eventually became an independent scientist and led the Crop Resistance Genes team. Sam’s research interest is centered on molecular genetics and plant pathology, focusing on understanding the interaction between cereal crops and its pathogens. Between 2017-2019, Sam took a secondment position at the Australian National University to complete the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award project, where he extended his research further to understand the molecular interaction between Myrtaceae tree species and the myrtle rust pathogen.

Olubukola Oluranti Babalola: North-West University, South Africa (BMC Microbiology)

Olubukola is an NRF-rated scientist, an MBA graduate, a Research Director and a Principal Investigator at NWU. After a PhD with a Fellowship from IITA and OWSD, she had postdoctoral experiences at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, and the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. She has worked on rhizosphere metagenomics for almost 20 years. She serves on many editorial boards and as an international advisor to several others. Her recent Springer book is “Food Security and Safety: Africa’s Perspective.” Olubukola is #1 in Africa for Soil Science and Plant Nutrition.

Manoj Kumar Solanki: University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland (BMC Microbiology)

Dr Manoj Kumar Solanki is currently working as a scientist in the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. He obtained his PhD in Microbiology from Rani Durgawati University, India, and was awarded a visiting scientist fellowship from the Guangxi Academy of Agriculture Sciences, China, and at Volcani Center, Agricultural Research Organization, Israel. Dr Solanki has been engaged in various research activities on plants–microbes interaction, soil microbiology, plant disease management, enzymology, and published many research articles in various international journals.

Alok K Srivastava: National Bureau of Agriculturally Important Microorganisms, India (BMC Microbiology)

Dr Alok Kumar Srivastava is a dedicated scientist in the area of molecular microbiology, presently working as Director at ICAR-National Bureau of Agriculturally Important Microorganisms, India. He has made an outstanding and pioneering contribution in the area of Molecular Plant Pathology, contributed to structural, functional and comparative genomics of agriculturally important microorganisms, pathogens, development of molecular diagnostic tools and biological control of important diseases. Dr Srivastava has successfully completed several externally funded research projects from DST, DBT and other agencies of the Indian Government.

Manoj Kr Tripathi: Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, India (BMC Microbiology)

Dr Manoj Kumar Tripathi is currently working as Principal Scientist at ICAR-Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal, India. His major areas of professional interest include medicinal compounds, functional food, nutraceutical, probiotic fermented food, food safety and food quality. Dr Tripathi has been recipient of several prestigious awards and honours, and he is also working as an editor-In-chief, editor and member of editorial board of several national and international journals.

Andreia Cristina Figueiredo: Science Faculty of Lisbon University, Portugal (BMC Plant Biology)

Andreia Figueiredo is an associate professor at the Science Faculty of Lisbon University and the head of the Grapevine Pathogen Systems Lab. Since her PhD on Cellular and Molecular Biology, she dedicated her research to the study of plant-pathogen interactions focusing on grapevine, through a systems biology approach by employing multi OMIC technologies, functional genomics, and biotechnology-based approaches. Her research group’s main aim is to unveil disease regulatory networks in grapevine but also to understand plant-pathogen and plant-microorganisms communication, aiming at improving crop resistance and achieve sustainable production through biotechnology-based approaches.

Ravi Gupta: Kookmin University, South Korea (BMC Plant Biology)

Dr Ravi Gupta obtained his Ph.D. in Plant Physiology and Biochemistry from the University of Delhi, India. After gaining his Ph.D., he spent more than five years in South Korea working as a postdoctoral fellow and Research Professor at Pusan National University, Busan, Korea. Dr Gupta is a recipient of several prestigious national and international awards such as Ramalingaswami re-entry fellowship, Ramanujan fellowship, and ITS fellowship from Government of India and Korea Research/Brain-pool Fellowship from Government of South Korea. His current objectives include unravelling the molecular mechanism of plant-pathogen interaction using rice-Magnaporthe oryzae and rice-Xanthomonas oryzae pathosystems.

Aiping Song: Nanjing Agricultural University, China (BMC Plant Biology)

Aiping Song is an Associate Professor in Ornamental Horticulture in College of Horticulture, Nanjing Agricultural University, China. He has investigated many aspects of ornamental plant genomics and molecular biology, emphasizing the role of stress response, development, and plant-pathogen interaction. He has developed a variety of bioinformatics tools to promote molecular biology research, especially in protein-protein interactions. With the help of multi omics technologies, he explored the core regulatory modules that regulate plant traits, aiming at improving crops by using genetic editing tools.

About the collection

BMC Biology together with BMC Plant Biology and BMC Microbiology announce the launch of the collection ‘Plants and their Pathogens’, for which we invite submissions of manuscripts relevant to the research topic.

Plant pathogens have been implicated with severe losses in crop yield, thus affecting food security for the growing human population. With increasing importance given to cultivating and sustaining crops for agriculture and the food industry, and preventing the spread of plant pathogens, understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying plant-pathogen interactions, both in the host plant and the infecting pathogen, is paramount. With implications for the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) 2 (Zero hunger), 12 (Sustainable consumption and production), 13 (Climate action) and 15 (Life on land), BMC Biology together with BMC Plant Biology and BMC Microbiology would like to acknowledge this fast-growing area of research with the launch of the ‘Plants and their Pathogens’ collection.

We invite submissions on all aspects of plant-pathogen interactions with studies that focus on either the individual host or the pathogen as well as those that map their interactions. This collection welcomes research articles and any methods that researchers wish to establish in this exciting and growing field.

The collection aims to cover a broad range of subject areas including, but not limited to:

•    Omics of plant-pathogen interactions
•    Molecular markers and omics tools for fungal plant pathogens
•    Breeding of resistant crops
•    Development of new fungicides against fungal pathogens
•    Genetic engineering of hosts and pathogens affecting crop yield
•    Tree, ornamental plant and crop pathogens
•    Cell biology of plant pathogens and infection
•    Mechanisms underlying plant defence responses, resistance and immunity
•    Mechanisms underlying pathogen infection strategies and pathogenicity
•    Molecular interactions between the host and the pathogen
•    Methods and technologies in plant pathology, and plant disease detection and control
•    The role of beneficial microbes in plant-pathogen interactions
•    Development of novel management strategies to prevent and control the spread of plant pathogens

Each participating journal is editorially independent. Please submit directly to the relevant journal, stating in your cover letter that the submission refers to the collection ‘Plants and their Pathogens’. Alternatively you can email your pre-submission queries to the in-house journal Editors (BMC Biology queries should be sent to bmcbiologyeditorial@biomedcentral.com; BMC Plant Biology and BMC Microbiology queries should be sent to Dr Giovagnetti).

Image credit: Ruth Swan / stock.adobe.com

  1. Shifts in dynamic equilibria of the abundance of cellular molecules in plant-pathogen interactions need further exploration. We induced PTI in optimally growing Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings for 16 h, returning ...

    Authors: Mohammad Abukhalaf, Carsten Proksch, Domenika Thieme, Jörg Ziegler and Wolfgang Hoehenwarter
    Citation: BMC Biology 2023 21:249
  2. Leptosphaeria maculans “brassicae” (Lmb) and Leptosphaeria biglobosa “brassicae” (Lbb) make up a species complex involved in the stem canker (blackleg) disease of rapeseed (Brassica napus). They coinfect rapeseed...

    Authors: Elise J. Gay, Noémie Jacques, Nicolas Lapalu, Corinne Cruaud, Valerie Laval, Marie-Hélène Balesdent and Thierry Rouxel
    Citation: BMC Biology 2023 21:247
  3. Melanin plays important roles in morphological development, survival, host–pathogen interactions and in the virulence of phytopathogenic fungi. In Verticillum dahliae, increases in melanin are recognized as marke...

    Authors: Huan Li, Ruo-Cheng Sheng, Chen-Ning Zhang, Li-Chao Wang, Min Li, Ya-Hong Wang, Yu-Hang Qiao, Steven J. Klosterman, Jie-Yin Chen, Zhi-Qiang Kong, Krishna V. Subbarao, Feng-Mao Chen and Dan-Dan Zhang
    Citation: BMC Biology 2023 21:237
  4. The population structure of crop pathogens such as Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (Pst), the cause of wheat stripe rust, is of interest to researchers looking to understand these pathogens on a molecular lev...

    Authors: Samuel Holden, Guus Bakkeren, John Hubensky, Ramandeep Bamrah, Mehrdad Abbasi, Dinah Qutob, Mei-Lan de Graaf, Sang Hu Kim, Hadley R. Kutcher, Brent D. McCallum, Harpinder S. Randhawa, Muhammad Iqbal, Keith Uloth, Rishi R. Burlakoti and Gurcharn S. Brar
    Citation: BMC Biology 2023 21:233
  5. The extracellular space between the cell wall and plasma membrane is a battlefield in plant-pathogen interactions. Within this space, the pathogen employs its secretome to attack the host in a variety of ways,...

    Authors: Ran Li, Xi-Yue Ma, Ye-Jing Zhang, Yong-Jun Zhang, He Zhu, Sheng-Nan Shao, Dan-Dan Zhang, Steven J. Klosterman, Xiao-Feng Dai, Krishna V. Subbarao and Jie-Yin Chen
    Citation: BMC Biology 2023 21:166

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of Research Articles. Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have read the submission guidelines of the journal you are submitting to (BMC Biology, BMC Microbiology and BMC Plant Biology). Articles for this Collection should be submitted via the respective submission system (BMC Biology, BMC Microbiology and BMC Plant Biology). During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select ["Plants and Their Pathogens"] from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the standard peer-review process of the journal they are considered in (BMC Biology, BMC Microbiology and BMC Plant Biology) and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editor or Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.