Research advances in secondary metabolites of pest control fungi in the post-genomic era

Fungal secondary metabolites play an important role in the biological control of pests. The secondary metabolites produced by fungi, which are the main substance in biocontrol, have attracted more and more attention. With the development of sequencing technology in recent years, the use of genomic and bioinformatics technology to excavate fungal secondary metabolites has become a new hot spot, which also provide new strategies for the discovery of new fungal biocontrol agents in the post-genomic era. In this review, several typical insecticidal fungi and their invasion and pathogenic mechanisms were presented. Typically, insecticidal toxins produced by several common insecticidal fungi and the biosynthetic pathways were systematically summarized. Our review provides insights into the further development of fungal biocontrol agents. Finally, the application of fungal secondary metabolites in biocontrol agents was prospected.