Harnessing plant natural products for enhanced biotic stress resistance

Plant natural products (PNPs) are specialized metabolites with diverse biological activities that are central to plant adaptation to biotic stresses. They act as chemical defenses against pathogens and pests, supporting plant survival under attack. Harnessing their potential as eco-friendly biopesticides requires a detailed understanding of their biosynthetic pathways and biological functions. This review highlights recent advances in the discovery and pathway elucidation of defensive PNPs and discusses strategies for their application through heterologous expression and enhanced in planta production. • Plant natural products (PNP) can be utilized to enhance plant resistance to biotic stresses. • Multi-omics data have facilitated identification of defense-related genes and PNP. • Metabolic engineering in plants and microbes enables scalable PNP production. • Bridging discovery to field trials is essential for applying PNP in crop protection.