Unravelling CRF-mediated pathways to address the growing need for resilient crops

Climate change-induced environmental stress significantly affects crop yield and quality. In response to environmental stressors, plants use defence mechanisms and growth suppression, creating a resource trade-off between the stress response and development. Although stress-responsive genes have been widely engineered to enhance crop stress tolerance, there is still limited understanding of the interplay between stress signalling and plant growth Cytokinin Response Factors (CRFs) transcription factors were shown to regulate Cytokinins (CKs) level during the oxidative stress response by interacting with CKs signalling machinery to boost photosynthetic efficiency under stress conditions in Arabidopsis and tomato CRFs emerge as potential targets for mitigating yield penalties under abiotic stress conditions. In this study, Lactuca sativa CRFs are identified and characterised in abiotic stress responses. Furthermore, the regulatory networks associated with CRFs are examined through WGCNA and cluster analyses of in-house and public RNA-seq data. Moreover, natural variations of selected CRF genes in lettuce and tomato are explored as potential markers for lettuce breeding