Secondary Metabolite Chemistry of Endophytic Fungi

Endophytic fungi inhabit living plant tissues without eliciting disease symptoms and constitute a vast reservoir of structurally diverse secondary metabolites. These specialised compounds—ranging from polyketides, terpenoids and alkaloids to peptides and cytochalasans—play critical roles in ecological interactions, host protection and niche competition. Advances in genome sequencing have revealed the prevalence of biosynthetic gene clusters that underpin the enzymatic machinery for novel compound assembly. Cultivation techniques such as co-culture induction, elicitation with chemical or physical stimuli and the OSMAC (One Strain MAny Compounds) approach further expand the chemical repertoire. Analytical platforms combining high-resolution mass spectrometry and NMR spectroscopy enable the rapid dereplication and structural elucidation of new metabolites. Collectively, these developments have accelerated the discovery of lead molecules with antimicrobial, anticancer, insecticidal and agrichemical potential, highlighting the global significance of endophytic fungi in sustainable drug discovery and crop protection.

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Secondary Metabolite Chemistry of Endophytic Fungi publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in secondary metabolite chemistry of endophytic fungi across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Secondary metabolite: A non-essential small molecule produced by an organism, often mediating ecological interactions and possessing bioactive properties.

Endophytic fungi: Fungal species that live asymptomatically within plant tissues and synthesise specialised metabolites.

Polyketide: A class of secondary metabolite assembled by polyketide synthases, often bearing complex cyclised and aromatic structures.

Cytochalasan: A macrocyclic fungal metabolite known to bind actin and exhibit cytotoxic or antimicrobial activities.

Biosynthetic gene cluster (BGC): A co-localized set of genes encoding enzymes and regulatory proteins for the production of a specific secondary metabolite.

OSMAC strategy: A cultivation approach that varies growth conditions to elicit the production of diverse secondary metabolites from a single microbial strain.

References

1. The Polyketides with Antimicrobial Activities from a Mangrove Endophytic Fungus Trichoderma lentiforme ML-P8-2. Marine Drugs (2023).
2. Six Unprecedented Cytochalasin Derivatives from the Potato Endophytic Fungus Xylaria curta E10 and Their Cytotoxicity. Pharmaceuticals (2023).
3. Recent progress in biodiversity research on the Xylariales and their secondary metabolism. The Journal of Antibiotics (2020).