Shilpa A Verekar
St. Xavier’s Autonomous College, India
Title: Why pharmaceutical industry should work on fungal endophytes?
Biography
Biography: Shilpa A Verekar
Abstract
Endophytic fungi are defined as fungi that live asymptomatically within the tissue of higher plants. These fungi can produce a plethora of secondary metabolites and came in limelight after the discovery of Taxol followed by compounds like Camptothecin, Vincristine and Cryptocandin. The potential of endophytic fungi is well established but its translation into commercial level production is yet to be explored. The focus of our research activity is on the discovery of bioactive metabolites from endophytic fungi from Indian subcontinent which offers a great opportunity to discover unexplored fungi with pharmaceutical potential. India is blessed with two hotspots of biodiversity, out of the total twelve mega biodiversity centers in the world. Moreover, out of 17500 flowering plants available in India, over one-third of these are endemic. These plants enjoy diverse habitats in different geographical regions and climatic zones ranging from tropical to alpine regions (Himalayas) and from coastal regions to the deserts. Some of them withstand the extreme climatic conditions viz. the deserts, cold deserts, hot springs, craters etc. During the course of our study related to drug discovery using various cell based, target based and enzyme based screening to get anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial compounds; we have screened more than 6000 endophytic fungi isolated from plants of diverse habitats with medicinal properties to get bioactive molecules. The most prolific producer of biologically active compounds were the species of Mycoleptodiscus, Phoma, Phomopsis, Xylaria, Chaetomium, Alternaria, Nigrospora, Curvularia, Fusarium, Arthrinium and sterile forms which yielded compounds like PM181110, Heptelidic acid, Altersolanol A, Ophiobolin, Nectripyrone, Ergoflavin, A52688 antibiotic complex, Arthrichitin and Herbarin. An overview of such compounds and some aspects of fast track lead generation will be covered in this presentation.