Endophytic Fungi: Novel Sources of Anticancer Molecules
Cancer is an enormous global health burden, touching every region of the world. The term “anticancer” is based on the assessment of the authors of the paper of the cytotoxicity of each compound against specific cancer cell lines. Endophytic fungi, fungi t
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Vinod Kumar, Shalini Rai, Pallavi Gaur, and Tayaba Fatima
Abstract
Cancer is an enormous global health burden, touching every region of the world. The term “anticancer” is based on the assessment of the authors of the paper of the cytotoxicity of each compound against specific cancer cell lines. Endophytic fungi, fungi that are residing asymptomatically in internal tissues of all higher plants, are of growing interest as promising sources of biologically active agents. Endophytic fungi are one of the most creative groups of secondary metabolite producers that play important biological roles for human life. This chapter mainly focuses on endophytic fungi, which produce anticancer bioactive compounds such as paclitaxel, podophyllotoxin, camptothecin, vinblastine, hypericin, and diosgenin. The uniqueness of the endophytic community of fungi is stressed as a promising source of novel compounds with anticancer activity. Endophytes represent a dependable source of specific secondary metabolites and can be manipulated both physicochemically and genetically to increase yields of desired metabolites and to produce novel analogues of active metabolites.
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Introduction
There is a need to search for new antimicrobial agents because infectious diseases are still a global problem because of the development and
V. Kumar (*) • S. Rai • P. Gaur • T. Fatima National Bureau of Agriculturally Important Microorganisms, Kushmaur, Post Box No. 6, Kaithauli, Mau Nath Bhanjan 275 101, Uttar Pradesh, India e-mail: [email protected]
spread of drug-resistant pathogens (Pillay and Zambon 1998; Espinel et al. 2001). Novel anticancer drugs are also required due to the high worldwide mortality (Pisani et al. 1999). Cancer is a group of diseases that can affect various organs of the body and is characterized by the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells and invasion into normal tissue. Cancer cells can also spread to other parts of the body and produce new tumors. If the spread of cells becomes uncontrolled, it can lead to death. Today, cancer accounts for one in every eight deaths worldwide – more than HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria
V.C. Verma and A.C. Gange (eds.), Advances in Endophytic Research, DOI 10.1007/978-81-322-1575-2_20, © Springer India 2014
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combined. In 2008, there were an estimated 12.7 million cases of cancer diagnosed and 7.6 million deaths from cancer around the world. More than 60 % of all cancer deaths lack the medical resources and health systems to support the disease burden. Moreover, the global cancer burden is growing at an alarming pace; in 2030 alone, about 21.4 million new cancer cases and 13.2 million cancer deaths are expected to occur, simply due to the growth and aging of the population, adoption of behaviors, as well as lifestyle and environmental influences including smoking, poor diet, physical inactivity, and reproductive patterns (American Cancer Society 2013). The treatment of the disease is very difficult due to limited number of cancer chemotherapies, their del
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