Numerous plants and fungi produce mannitol, which may serve as an osmolyte or metabolic store; furthermore, mannitol also acts as a powerful quencher of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Some phytopathogenic fungi use mannitol to stifle ROS-mediated plant resistance. Mannitol is essential in pathogenesis to balance cell reinforcements produced by both plants and animals. Mannitol likewise serves as a source of reducing power, managing coenzymes, and controlling cytoplasmic pH by going about as a sink or hotspot for protons. The metabolic pathways for what is mannitol biosynthesis and catabolism have been characterized in filamentous fungi by direct diminishment of fructose-6-phosphate into mannitol-1-phosphate including a mannitol-1-phosphate phosphatase catalyst. In plants mannitol is integrated from mannose-6-phosphate to mannitol-1-phosphate, which then dephosphorylates to mannitol. The enzyme mannitol dehydrogenase plays a key role in host–pathogen interactions and must be co-localized with pathogen-secreted mannitol to resist the infection.

Introduction
Mannitol, a six carbon non-cyclic sugar liquor, is a polyol commonly found in plants and fungi. In plant species, mannitol appears to be, in every way, to be the most expansive, being found in more than 70 families. In plants, what is mannitol is made despite sucrose and is a phloem-translocated photoassimilate. Mannitol has various capacities in the plants including serving as a carbon stockpiling compound, as a store of reducing power, as a compatible osmolyte and in osmoregulation . Mannitol has similarly been shown to be an oxygen radical quencher both in vitro and in vivo . Mannitol is the essential translocated sugar when the sucrose pool is drained . It may moreover be incorporated in the utilization of photochemical impulses .

Mannitol is the most widely recognized polyol in fungi, where it is found in spores, fruiting bodies, and mycelia , and is considered to be the abundant most of all dissolvable starches inside mycelia and fruiting bodies . In fungi, mannitol is a storage or a translocated carbohydrate, and is essential in spore germination under starvation conditions . Mannitol additionally extinguishes reactive oxygen species , prompting the speculation that it can assume a cell reinforcement part in host–pathogen interactions. As a case in point, mannitol-deficient mutants of Cryptococcus neoformans are less harmful than the wild type strain, probably because of the way that mannitol ensures protection against oxidative executing by phagocytic cells .
Mannitol production and secretion are required for the pathogenicity of several fungal pathogens of both animals and plants . In infecting tobacco, Alternaria alternata secretes mannitol, which is induced by host leaf extracts . This observation revealed that fungal pathogens secrete mannitol to quench the ROS that mediate plant defenses. In response, pathogen-induced what is mannitol dehydrogenase (MTD) in the plant catabolize the pathogen’s secreted mannitol, thus protecting the plants ROS-mediated defenses. Mannitol deficient mutants of A. alternata created by target gene disruption had reduced pathogenicity on tobacco , confirming that mannitol production and secretion was a significant factor for pathogenicity of this fungus.