Chlorogenic acid-mediated chemical defense of plants against insect herbivores

Abstract

Chlorogenic acid is one of the most abundant beneficial polyphenols in plants and is well known as nutritional anti‐oxidant in plant based foods. Apart from its dietary antioxidant activity, it has been proven to be an efficient defense molecule against a broad range of insect herbivores.

In the last two decades, several reports have shown the effectiveness of chlorogenic acid for insect's growth deterrence. Biosynthetic pathway for chlorogenic acid biosynthesis in plants was previously elucidated and metabolic engineering of the principal pathway showed high chlorogenic acid production in tomato plants. Herbivore mediated induction of chlorogenic acid biosynthesis was also demonstrated both at metabolite and transcript level, though herbivore‐mediated molecular regulation of chlorogenic acid biosynthesis is not fully elucidated yet.

In this communication, we present our views on the efficacy of chlorogenic acid as anti‐herbivore defense molecule in plants and also discuss its future outlook.