Global Scenario of Fungal White Biotechnology: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

White fungal biotechnology is an emerging field in scientific arena that supports revealing of novel and vital biotechnological components. Fungi used are divided in five major economically important fields such as drug manufacturing, food and dietary, environmental, agriculture and biotechnology area. “Penicillin” drug discovery from Penicillium fungal sp. turns into a keystone for white fungal biotechnology. Fungi are treasure island for production of various intracellular enzymes and microbial based industrial product, i.e., lead bioactive compound for drug discovery, dairy product, detergent, lignocellulose, textile and biofuel. Fungi are highly diversified group of microorganism, i.e., Fusarium, Aspergillus, Trichoderma, mycorrhizal fungi that produce various enzymatically active compounds, laccase, protease, chitinase, lignocellulose, etc. These heterotrophs are dominant decomposers of the soil ecosystem which allows degrading organic material, by processing the matter through biodegradation and biosorption methods. Fungi possess a symbiotic relationship with host plant based on mutualism. Fungi play an important role in plant growth promotion by producing plant growth-promoting factors, enhance phytohormone production, and secrete immune stimulatory elements. In agriculture field, crop plants are susceptible to pathogenic microbial consortia during the harvesting season, and mycorrhizal fungi play a vital role in biocontrol and also minimize abiotic stress in plants. Biofuel production using fungi is a new renewable approach to overcome fuel crisis in the world. Microbial based cleaning products replace chemicals due to high price and toxicity caused to the environment. Fungal species are versatile tools for manufacturing secondary metabolite for drug discovery and can be used as genetic model organism for insulin production. Fungi utilization can be exploited as an alternative and contemporary tactic to minimize greenhouse gas emission in the environment. Synergistic action and kinetic expression profile of saprophytic fungi are needed to explore a novel range of catalytic products that can be useful in lignocellulose degradation for synthesis of industrially important by-product. Genome data mining, metabolomics, proteomics, and transcriptomics can be applied to build novel scientific agenda for several unknown enzymes, genes and metabolic pathways in white fungal biotechnology.