Endophytes as a Novel Source of Bioactive New Structures
Fighting the existing and emerging diseases is one of the big challenges of this age, as the appearance of drug-resistant pathogens is an alarming phenomenon, globally. To address this matter of urgency, researchers and pharmaceutical companies have to re
- PDF / 435,595 Bytes
- 12 Pages / 504.57 x 720 pts Page_size
- 115 Downloads / 214 Views
10
Mahmoud Fahmi Elsebai, Mysore V. Tejesvi, and Anna Maria Pirttilä
Abstract
Fighting the existing and emerging diseases is one of the big challenges of this age, as the appearance of drug-resistant pathogens is an alarming phenomenon, globally. To address this matter of urgency, researchers and pharmaceutical companies have to revive efforts to develop completely new classes of pharmaceuticals. Natural products have proved a fascinating resource in the continued search for new drug candidates. Among various natural sources, microorganisms represent a sustainable and reproductive source of bioactive compounds, where endophytes are considered a hidden component. Endophytes have fascinating potential for a source of new drug leads as they have capacity to synthesize organic compound of diverse structural features. Most of the promising natural products are available only in extremely small quantities, which necessitate substantial efforts to produce required amounts for pharmacological testing. In addition, many natural products have highly complex structures, complicating commercial production through chemical synthesis. The majority of such drug candidates remains pharmacologically undeveloped due to the perceived supply problem and anticipated higher production costs. Therefore, new methods and techniques such as metagenomics and metatranscriptomics are needed to facilitate production of such compounds for pharmaceutical industry.
1 M.F. Elsebai Department of Biology, University of Oulu, PO Box 3000, FIN-90014 Oulu, Finland Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacognosy, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt M.V. Tejesvi • A.M. Pirttilä (*) Department of Biology, University of Oulu, PO Box 3000, FIN-90014 Oulu, Finland e-mail: [email protected]
Introduction
Despite the discovery of many effective drugs, a number of health problems still remain uncured. These problems include various types of cancer, viral infections such as HIV and HCV, severe fungal and bacterial infections, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, depression, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, inflammatory disorders, and many others. Therefore, the search for novel
V.C. Verma and A.C. Gange (eds.), Advances in Endophytic Research, DOI 10.1007/978-81-322-1575-2_10, © Springer India 2014
191
M.F. Elsebai et al.
192
therapeutic agents continues, and there is a need to discover new structural leads for drug development. Natural products offer a good opportunity both for a direct therapeutic effect and for the discovery of lead compounds that provide the basis and inspiration for the semisynthesis or total synthesis of effective drugs. Investigation of endophytic compounds, especially fungal ones, resulted in the discovery of structurally novel natural products with interesting biological activities, evidenced by the increased number of published reviews and the release of compounds in the clinical market (Mayer et al. 2011; Rateb and Ebel 2011). Unfortunately, these fascinating machineries synthesizing diverse structures still remain und
Data Loading...
