Recently, three more articles have been published that deal with plants suffering from this genetic defect.

Recently, three more articles have been published that are about plants suffering from this genetic defect.

(oder so ähnlich)

Your "deal with," "to be about" are fine; in both cases you can remove the relative clause (and maybe consider repositioning the temporal adverb):

Three more articles have been published recently dealing with plants suffering from this genetic defect.

Three more articles have been published recently about plants suffering from this genetic defect.

Or in both sentences the verb can be placed at the end:

Three more articles about plants suffering from this genetic defect have been published recently.

Three more articles dealing with plants suffering from this genetic defect have been published recently.