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Effects and molecular mechanism of endophytic elicitors on the accumulation of secondary metabolites in medicinal plants

Summary

This review explains how beneficial fungi living inside medicinal plants can boost the production of healing compounds. These endophytic fungi act as natural triggers that activate the plant’s own defense systems, causing it to produce more of the valuable medicinal substances used in traditional and modern medicine. By understanding how this process works, scientists can develop better methods to grow medicinal plants and produce natural drugs more sustainably without depleting wild plant populations.

Background

Endophytes in medicinal plants possess significant biological value by providing elicitors that regulate plant growth and secondary metabolite synthesis. Due to prolonged land degradation and rare medicinal plant depletion, extracting secondary metabolites from endophytic fungi and host plant symbiotic systems has become an important approach for conserving medicinal natural resources.

Objective

This review emphasizes the effective ability of endophytic fungi to induce secondary metabolite accumulation in medicinal plants and explains the biological mechanisms underlying endophytic elicitor-host plant interactions. The goal is to clarify the mechanism and important role of endophytic elicitors in natural drug production and sustainable medicinal plant cultivation.

Results

The review identifies four main levels of endophytic elicitor action: inducer recognition, signal transduction, transcription factor integration, and gene expression. Key signaling molecules include NO, ROS, JA, and SA, which regulate secondary metabolite biosynthesis. Multiple studies demonstrate significant increases in secondary metabolite production in various medicinal plants when treated with endophytic elicitors.

Conclusion

Endophytic elicitors represent an effective and sustainable approach to enhance secondary metabolite production in medicinal plants through complex molecular mechanisms. Future research should focus on understanding plant-microbe interactions, microbial community assembly, and developing synthetic microbial communities to maximize the biotechnological potential of endophytes for natural drug production.
  • Published in:Frontiers in Microbiology,
  • Study Type:Review,
  • Source: PMC12171356, PMID: 40529579, DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1558567
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