Bioprospecting of endophytic fungi for bioactive compounds

Abstract

Higher plants that host microflora that reside asymptomatically in their tissues for some time of their life and do not result in apparent symptoms of diseases are called as endophytes. These endophytic microbes may provide protection and survival strategies in their host plants with production of a repertoire of chemically diverse and structurally unprecedented secondary metabolites and drug leads exhibiting an array of biological activities such as antimicrobial, anticancer, antiviral, antioxidants, insecticidal, antimalarial, antiparasitics, antidiabetic, immunosuppressants, etc. The advancements made in fungal cultivation, separation of metabolites, spectroscopic techniques for metabolite characterization, and in vitro bioassays for activity evaluation have disclosed the huge potential of endophytic fungi as an unex- ploited bioresource of novel chemical scaffolds. The present book chapter high- lights the chemical potential of endophytic fungi isolated from diverse niche environments and their contribution from a drug discovery perspective.