Secondary Metabolite Production by Endophytic Fungi: The Gene Clusters, Nature, and Expression

Abstract

With the recent advancements in drug discovery, the bioprospecting of endophytic fungi for the search of secondary metabolites of pharmaceutical importance and novel medicinal properties has become one of the prime targets. The biosynthetic pathways that are responsible for secondary metabolites have genetic basis for their production. But the expression of the gene clusters responsible for secondary metabolites remains cryptic under laboratory conditions. The large-scale production of these metabolites is severely distressed by its attenuation in axenic cultures. Our insights into these clusters, their regulation, and expression may lead to the mining of more novel bioactive metabolites. This approach of genome mining for the production of novel metabolites is assuring. Major challenges lie in the understanding of the regulatory mechanisms which drive the expression of these cryptic genes. Gaining knowledge on various strategies for the identification as well as induction of these silent clusters is the need of the hour. With the help of multidisciplinary scientific approaches involving bioinformatics, molecular genetics, genome mining, metabolomics, etc., we can explore the hidden treasures of the endophytic fungal diversity.