Newswise — Medicinal plants are important economic crops and of great value in healthcare industry. The rapid growth of market demand has led to a shortage of Chinese medicinal crops and an annual increase in prices. Secondary metabolites (SMs), as the main active components in medicinal plants, are widely used to produce clinical therapeutic drugs or raw materials for drug preparations.
The accumulation of SMs in medicinal plants is influenced by both internal physiological factors and external environmental factors, such as climate, soil physicochemical properties and microorganisms. In recent years, studies have found that the rhizosphere and endophytic microorganisms play a vital role in the accumulation of key SMs in many medicinal plants. Recently, Professor Hong Wu and his team from the Medicinal Plant Research Center of South China Agricultural University published a review paper titled “ Regulation of Secondary Metabolites Accumulation in Medicinal Plants by Rhizospheric and Endophytic Microorganisms ” in Medicinal Plant Biology .
In this review, they summarize the factors that affect the composition of rhizospheric and endophytic microorganisms in medicinal plants, including the physical and chemical properties of the soil, planting mode, different developmental stages of medicinal plants, and plant cultivars. In addition, this review shows that microorganisms encode genes related to nitrogen fixation, phosphate metabolism, hormone synthesis, and root coloniza.