Nitric oxide: A potential key point of the signaling network leading to plant secondary metabolite biosynthesis

The endogenous signaling network of plants plays important roles in mediating the exogenous factor-induced biosynthesis of secondary metabolites. Nitric oxide (NO) has emerged as a key signaling molecule in plants recently. Numerous studies demonstrated that the main signaling molecules such as salicylic acid (SA), jasmonic acid (JA), reactive oxygen species (ROS), and NO were not only involved in regulating plant secondary metabolite biosynthesis but also interacted to form a complex signaling network by mutual inhibition and/or synergy. The recent progress in the signal network of plant secondary metabolite biosynthesis has been discussed in this paper. Furthermore, we propose a hypothetical model to show that NO might act as a potential molecular switch in the signaling network leading to plant secondary metabolite biosynthesis.