About this Research Topic

Background

Endophytes can live inside plant tissues without causing visible symptoms in their hosts. Endophytic fungi have have gained remarkable attention as they they not only provide novel sources of bioactive secondary metabolites (SMs) that are the backbone of many drugs, but can also protect the host plant from biotic and abiotic stresses that pose a serious threat to crop food safety and security. Hence, endophytic fungi have had a considerable impact on medicine, agriculture and industry, and thus the economy.

SMs produced by endophytic fungi include phenols, alkaloids, polyketides, quinones, steroids, enzymes, and peptides displaying diverse biological activities such as anticancer, insecticidal, antioxidant, cytotoxic, antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal and antimalarial. A microbial fermentation process would be the most favorable means for the production of bioactive secondary metabolites. Microorganisms are fast-growing and their genetic manipulation is relatively easy and can be scaled up to an industrial level.

Chemical control of plant disease can be destructive to the environment, and repeated use of chemical fungicides could lead to the prevalence of agrochemical-resistant strains. The application of endophytic fungi for enhancing tolerance or resistance to biotic stress is a greener alternative approach which could reduce the use of chemicals in agriculture, conferring benefits to both the environment and human health. Using endophytic fungi for the protection of plants against abiotic stresses could additionally mitigate the detrimental effect of global climate change on agriculture.

Mycorrhizal fungi are the other major class of endophytic fungi. They inhabit roots but spread out into the rhizosphere. Mycorrhizae can also enhance plant tolerance against different abiotic stresses related to global climate change including heat, metals, salinity, drought and extreme temperatures. Therefore, they can cause the plants to cope with changing climate.

This research topic encourages the submission of the manuscripts reporting on:
• Fungal cell factories for the production of secondary metabolites
• Fungal elicitors for elicitation of producing the secondary metabolites in plant cell suspension cultures
• Application of endophytic fungi for the biocontrol of the plant disease
• Application of endophytic fungi for inducing abiotic stress tolerance in plant
• Biocontrol mechanism including antibiosis, parasitism and competition
• Buffering host plants against extinction using mycorrhizae
• Using mycorrhizae in modern global agricultural systems
• Molecular mechanisms of mycorrhizae in response to various stress

Keywords: Endophytism, bioactive compounds, biological control, sustainable agriculture, biotic and abiotic stress, global climate change

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