Fungal secondary metabolites, characterized by remarkable scaffold diversity, structural complexity, and significant bioactivity, are extensive sources of therapeutic drugs and agrochemicals. The discovery of penicillin as the first broad-spectrum antibiotic agent in 1928 started the “Golden Age of Antibiotics” in the last century. Chemical research on fungal metabolites is on the rise these days, resulting in the isolation of a huge number of new metabolites. Meanwhile, the rapid development of new technologies such as functional genomics accelerates secondary metabolites-based drug discoveries for pharmaceutical and agrochemical applications. However, despite outstanding developments in fungal secondary metabolites over the last few years, there is still an insistent necessity for searching for more interesting metabolites, especially those from extreme and unexplored environments.
This Research Topic aims to discover novel fungal secondary metabolites with high medical and agricultural potential, using promising approaches such as bioassay-guided isolation, OSMAC (One Strain Many Compounds) strategy, genome mining, and elucidation of biosynthetic pathways, etc. It is well-known that the traditional OSMAC strategy has contributed significantly to the discovery of novel fungal secondary metabolites. Meanwhile, with the development of functional genomics, genome mining is becoming one of the leading methods to efficiently activate silent gene clusters in fungi, which has been used successfully to lead to the characterization of abundant novel metabolites.
We welcome high-quality Original Research Articles, Short Communications, and Reviews for this Research Topic. Specific topics may include but are not limited to:
1. Bioassay-guided isolation, structural elucidation, and biological evaluation of novel fungal secondary metabolites.
2. Design, structural modifications, structure-activity relationships, and pharmacological mechanism of bioactive compounds, promoting leading discovery for drugs and agrochemicals development.
3. Culture regulation based on OSMAC strategy to search for more metabolites.
4. Advanced methodologies including genome mining, functional genes and clusters discovery with genomics/metabolomics, etc.
5. Future trends in bioprospecting fungal secondary metabolites.
Fungal secondary metabolites, characterized by remarkable scaffold diversity, structural complexity, and significant bioactivity, are extensive sources of therapeutic drugs and agrochemicals. The discovery of penicillin as the first broad-spectrum antibiotic agent in 1928 started the “Golden Age of Antibiotics” in the last century. Chemical research on fungal metabolites is on the rise these days, resulting in the isolation of a huge number of new metabolites. Meanwhile, the rapid development of new technologies such as functional genomics accelerates secondary metabolites-based drug discoveries for pharmaceutical and agrochemical applications. However, despite outstanding developments in fungal secondary metabolites over the last few years, there is still an insistent necessity for searching for more interesting metabolites, especially those from extreme and unexplored environments.
This Research Topic aims to discover novel fungal secondary metabolites with high medical and agricultural potential, using promising approaches such as bioassay-guided isolation, OSMAC (One Strain Many Compounds) strategy, genome mining, and elucidation of biosynthetic pathways, etc. It is well-known that the traditional OSMAC strategy has contributed significantly to the discovery of novel fungal secondary metabolites. Meanwhile, with the development of functional genomics, genome mining is becoming one of the leading methods to efficiently activate silent gene clusters in fungi, which has been used successfully to lead to the characterization of abundant novel metabolites.
We welcome high-quality Original Research Articles, Short Communications, and Reviews for this Research Topic. Specific topics may include but are not limited to:
1. Bioassay-guided isolation, structural elucidation, and biological evaluation of novel fungal secondary metabolites.
2. Design, structural modifications, structure-activity relationships, and pharmacological mechanism of bioactive compounds, promoting leading discovery for drugs and agrochemicals development.
3. Culture regulation based on OSMAC strategy to search for more metabolites.
4. Advanced methodologies including genome mining, functional genes and clusters discovery with genomics/metabolomics, etc.
5. Future trends in bioprospecting fungal secondary metabolites.