Chemical Diversity and Biosynthesis of Drimane-Type Sesquiterpenes in the Fungal Kingdom

Abstract

Drimane-type sesquiterpenes are a class of compounds produced by a wide range of organisms, initially isolated and characterized in plants. Meanwhile, in the past 20–30 years, a large number of novel structures from many divergent fungi have been elucidated. Recently, the biosynthesis of drimane-type sesquiterpenes and their esters has been explained in two filamentous fungi, namely Aspergillus oryzae and Aspergillus calidoustus, disclosing the basic biosynthetic principles needed to identify similar pathways in the fungal kingdom.