Abstract: The pentose phosphate pathway in plant is a very important metabolic pathway which supplies the major sources of reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) and the ribulose 5-phosphate, ribose 5-phosphate and erythrose 5-phosphate involved in synthesis of nucleotides, aromatic amino acids and fatty acids in non-photosynthetic tissues. This paper mainly reviews the advances of research on plant pentose phosphate pathway and its key enzymes: glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase and 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase. Its possible functions involved in plant development or responding to environmental stresses are discussed.