Plant chemical defense: at what cost?
Abstract
Plants are sessile organisms and dependent on deployment of secondary metabolites for their response to biotic and abiotic challenges. A trade-off is envisioned between resources allocated to growth, development, and reproduction and to the biosynthesis, storage, and maintenance of secondary metabolites. However, increasing evidence suggests that secondary metabolites serve auxiliary roles, including functions associated with primary metabolism. In this opinion article, we examine how the costs of plant chemical defense can be offset by multifunctional biosynthesis and the optimization of primary metabolism. These additional benefits may negate the trade-off between primary and secondary metabolism, and provide plants with an innate plasticity required for growth, development, and interactions with their environment.
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The emergence of a more detailed understanding of plant metabolism may require revisiting the functional partitioning of primary metabolites, secondary metabolites, and plant hormones.
“However, the emergence of a more detailed understanding of plant metabolism may require us to revisit this functional partitioning (Neilson et al., 2013;Maag et al., 2015;Kliebenstein, 2018;Pichersky and Raguso, 2018;Zhou et al., 2018).”
From Plant Secondary Metabolites as Defenses, Regulators, and Primary Metabolites: The Blurred Functional Trichotomy (2020) · cites this paper as Neilson et al., 2013
Plants likely manage costs of secondary metabolite production through regulation of biosynthesis, but controlled recycling of resulting compounds would enhance the plant's ability to recoup costs in challenging environments.
“Plants likely manage costs of secondary metabolite production through the regulation of biosynthesis, but controlled recycling of the resulting compounds would enhance the plants ability to recoup costs in challenging environments (Neilson et al., 2013).”
From Plant Secondary Metabolites as Defenses, Regulators, and Primary Metabolites: The Blurred Functional Trichotomy (2020) · cites this paper as Neilson et al., 2013
Cites
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Emodin – a secondary metabolite with multiple ecological functions in higher plants
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Mobilization and Utilization of Cyanogenic Glycosides: The Linustatin Pathway
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Erb, M., & Kliebenstein, D. J. (2020) · Plant Physiology · doi:10.1104/pp.20.00433 · Cited by 1,333 · see citing works
Yeshi, K., Crayn, D., Ritmejerytė, E., & Wangchuk, P. (2022) · Molecules · doi:10.3390/molecules27010313 · Cited by 488 · see citing works
- Authors
- Neilson, E. H., Goodger, J. Q. D., Woodrow, I. E., & Møller, B. L.
- Affiliations
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- The University of Melbourne (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Neilson, Elizabeth H.
- Venue
- Trends in Plant Science
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2013-05
- Volume
- 18
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 250-258
- ISSN
- 1360-1385 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2068119633
- Cited by
- 385
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 27 · 2025: 37 · 2024: 35 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 45 · 2020: 36 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 25 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 25 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 2.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Trends in Plant Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Insect Science › Insect-Plant Interactions and Control
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Plant biochemistry and biosynthesis
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Plant-Microbe Interactions and Immunity
- Keywords
- plant chemical defense, secondary metabolites, primary metabolism, resource allocation trade-offs, plant plasticity, plant-environment interactions, growth and development
- MeSH terms
- Environment, Pheromones, Plants, Plant Physiological Phenomena, Plant Development
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