Plant Signaling: Mechanisms, Pathways, and Emerging Insights (Expanded Review)

Abstract

Plants continuously monitor their surroundings using sophisticated signaling networks that allow them to detect environmental changes, coordinate development, and respond to stress. Unlike animals, plants cannot relocate, and thus their survival depends on the rapid and precise integration of diverse signals—chemical, electrical, peptide-based, hormonal, and RNA-mediated. This expanded review synthesizes advances in plant signaling research, emphasizing perception mechanisms, hormone crosstalk, secondary messenger dynamics, electrical signaling, long-distance communication, and rhizosphere-mediated interactions. Emerging technologies such as multi-omics integration, biosensors, single-cell profiling, and computational modeling are discussed, highlighting future opportunities for engineering climate-resilient crops.