Metabolic versatility of fungi as a source for anticancer compounds

Abstract

Abstract Fungi have a remarkable range of metabolic pathways encoded by gene clusters, which able to digest organic matter and synthesize an array of potent molecules. The evolutionary processes like gene duplication and horizontal gene transfer interacted with clustered and non-clustered fungal metabolic pathways to generate metabolic versatility. Evolutionary diversities in fungal species increase the production of different classes of secondary metabolic such as alkaloids, terpenoids, polyketides, phenylpropanoids, peptides and aliphatic compounds for several diseases. Many fungal metabolites and their derivatives were tested in clinical cancer drug but it needed a significant research effort revealing an anticancer activity. Some metabolites showed significant in vitro growth inhibition on human cancer cell line and selected compounds provide therapeutic benefits in mouse models that are expected to enter in human clinical trials in future. This chapter discusses the resources, structures and biochemical studies of fungal metabolites and their derivatives having potent anticancer activity.