Phenylpropanoids metabolism: recent insight into stress tolerance and plant development cues

The phenylpropanoid pathway remains a key target for most climate-resilient crop development, owing to it being a precursor to over 8000 metabolites, including flavonoids and lignin compounds, including their derivatives. These metabolites are involved in biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, inviting several studies into their roles in plant defense, drought, temperature, UV, and nutrient stress tolerance. Literature is currently inundated with cutting-edge reports on the phenylpropanoid pathways and their functions. Here, we provide a comprehensive update on the biosynthesis of phenylpropanoids, mainly lignin and flavonoids, their roles in biotic and abiotic interaction, and transcending topics, including pest and diseases, drought, temperature, and UV stress tolerance. We further reviewed the post-transcriptional, post-translational, and epigenetic modifications regulating phenylpropanoid metabolism and highlighted their applications and optimization strategies for large-scale production. This review provides an all-inclusive update on recent reports on the metabolism of phenylpropanoids in plants.