Secondary Metabolites in Plant–Microbe Interactions

Dear Colleagues,

Plants and microbes possess high-capacity secretory systems and are extensively exploited for the biosynthesis of a wide array of molecules, ranging from extracellular proteins and polymeric substances to small compounds. These secreted molecules display a broad spectrum of biological properties that have potential applications in the pharmaceutical, food, and agricultural industries. Secondary metabolites (SMs) are at the forefront of these natural products, and play crucial roles in plant interactions with their microbiome, both for beneficial and detrimental outcomes on plants’ growth and development.

Several plant and microbial secretome studies have been conducted over the past 20 years to identify and characterize novel SMs and shed light on their role in microbe–host interactions. The recent advances in comparative genomics, metabolomics, and transcriptomic profiling, notably next-generation RNA sequencing, have made prominent progress in this area. In some studies, these practices were employed to assess the expression of SM gene clusters during various stages of infection, which revealed insights on the metabolites associated with plant–microbe interactions. Along the same line, use of the available gene-editing tools to generate mutant plants altered in specific steps of secondary metabolism and test their interaction with the surrounding microbiota made it possible for us to further our understanding of the  role of the investigated SMs in planta .

While substantial progress has been made in this field, roughly a quarter of the microbial SM biosynthetic gene clusters have been identified and characterized, and this number is much less on the plant side. This implies that many challenges and questions remain to be overcome and resolved, and the path forward is not simple. Therefore, in this Special Issue, we invite scientists to contribute original research papers and reviews that explore “Secondary Metabolites in Plant–Microbe Interactions” and cover relevant new developments in this field.

Dr. Jessy J. Labbe
Dr. Tomás Allen Rush
Dr. Joanna Tannous
Guest Editors

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• secondary metabolites
• plant–microbe interactions
• plant microbiota
• plant pathogens
• plant symbionts