International Journal of Molecular Evolution and Biodiversity, 2025, Vol.15, No.2, 111-123 http://ecoevopublisher.com/index.php/ijmeb 111 Feature Review Open Access Regulatory Mechanisms of Gene Expression in Brassica napus: From Development to Stress Adaptation Dandan Huang Hainan Institute of Biotechnology, Haikou, 570206, Hainan, China Corresponding email: dandan.huang@hitar.org International Journal of Molecular Evolution and Biodiversity, 2025, Vol.15, No.2 doi: 10.5376/ijmeb.2025.15.0010 Received: 20 Feb., 2025 Accepted: 28 Mar., 2025 Published: 18 Apr., 2025 Copyright © 2025 Huang, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Preferred citation for this article: Huang D.D., 2025, Regulatory mechanisms of gene expression in Brassica napus: from development to stress adaptation, International Journal of Molecular Evolution and Biodiversity, 15(2): 111-123 (doi: 10.5376/ijmeb.2025.15.0010) Abstract As an important oil crop in the world, Brassica napus occupies a key position in agricultural production and industrial applications due to its excellent oil accumulation capacity and wide ecological adaptability. This study systematically expounded the molecular mechanism of gene expression regulation in this crop, focusing on its regulatory network in growth and development and environmental stress response. Studies have shown that transcription factor families such as MYB, bHLH and WRKY finely regulate the adaptive response of rapeseed to abiotic stresses such as high temperature, low temperature and drought through complex synergistic effects. At the same time, epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation and histone modification constitute the second guarantee system for gene expression regulation. High-throughput omics technology and CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technology have successfully revealed key gene networks related to stress resistance, seed development and flowering regulation. However, due to the special complexity of the allotetraploid genome of Brassica napus and the intricate interactions between growth and development and stress response pathways, related research still faces many challenges. This study emphasizes that by integrating multi-omics analysis methods and synthetic biology strategies to establish a precise gene regulation system, it will provide a theoretical basis and technical support for breeding new rapeseed varieties with high and stable yields. This study not only has guiding significance for the genetic improvement of Brassica napus, but also provides a reference for the stress-resistant breeding of other important crops. Keywords Gene expression regulation; Brassica napus; Stress adaptation; Transcription factors; Epigenetic regulation 1 Introduction As an important oil crop in the world, Brassica napus L. occupies a key position in agricultural production and industrial applications. As the world's second largest source of vegetable oil, this crop not only provides high-quality edible oil for humans, but also has wide application value in industrial fields such as biofuels and cosmetics (Liu et al., 2018; Kourani et al., 2022). Its excellent environmental adaptability, especially its tolerance to adverse conditions such as low temperature stress and nutrient deficiency, is an important guarantee for maintaining high and stable yields (Hussain et al., 2022). At the molecular level, gene expression regulation in rapeseed (Brassica napus) shows high complexity. Studies have found that multiple transcription factor families such as WRKY, MYB and NAC synergistically regulate the ability of plants to cope with adverse environmental conditions such as temperature stress by constructing intertwined regulatory networks (Feng et al., 2019). It is worth emphasizing that the interaction between the two-component system (TCS) genes and the cytokinin signaling pathway plays a key regulatory role in maintaining the dynamic balance between plant growth and stress response (Liu et al., 2023). This study aims to explore the multi-level mechanism of gene expression regulation in rapeseed, focusing on the synergistic effects of transcription factor regulatory networks and signal transduction pathways in morphological developmental plasticity and environmental adaptability. At the same time, the functional specificity of these regulatory factors in different temporal and spatial expression backgrounds is analyzed, and how they precisely control plant physiological activities is revealed. This study helps to enrich people's molecular understanding of rapeseed's stress resistance mechanism, provide potential targets for future molecular design breeding, and
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