Interactions of Trichoderma with Plants, Insects, and Plant Pathogen Microorganisms: Chemical and Molecular Bases

Abstract

Trichoderma spp. are free-living fungi common in soils from different ecosystems, but can also establish endophytic associations with plants, roots, and seeds. Trichoderma are economically important due to their production of secondary metabolites of great interest in medicine, biotechnology, and agriculture. Fungal metabolites comprise nonvolatile and volatile compounds that include alcohols, aldehydes, organic acids, esters, hydrocarbonated compounds, ketones, and nitrogen- and sulfur-containing metabolites as the cyclic molecules indole-3-acetic acid and gliovirin, respectively. Fungal metabolites have been identified as natural products, and consequently, some compounds of interest have been obtained by chemical syntheses. In a natural scenario, a number of Trichoderma secondary metabolites have key roles regulating plant growth and development or affecting the proliferation of plant pathogenic microorganisms in the soil due to their production of antibiotics or siderophores. In this work, we consider the chemical basis for how Trichoderma spp. exert directly or indirectly beneficial effects on plants and control plant pathogenic microorganisms.