Fungal endophytes and their secondary metabolites: Role in sustainable agriculture

Abstract

In today’s constantly changing scenario, there is an increase in the use of novel and useful bioactive compounds for solving myriad of problems mankind faces, viz. appearance of drug-resistant bacteria, emergence of life-threatening viruses, increasing incidences of fungal infections in the world’s population and problems in eliminating food scarcity from some areas of the globe to help human populations. Fungal endophytes though not extensively studied yet are potent source of novel natural products useful in industry, agriculture and medicine. Each of the 300,000 plant species existing on earth is host to one or more endophytes. Till date about one tenth of an estimated one million plant species have been studied for fungal endophytes which are considerably diverse. This chapter deals with the range of bioactive metabolites produced by the fungal endophytes studied so far with emphasis on those useful in increasing food production.