title: Natural products from filamentous fungi and production by heterologous expression.
abstract: Filamentous fungi represent an incredibly rich and rather overlooked reservoir of natural products, which often show potent bioactivity and find applications in different fields. Increasing the naturally low yields of bioactive metabolites within their host producers can be problematic, and yield improvement is further hampered by such fungi often being genetic intractable or having demanding culturing conditions. Additionally, total synthesis does not always represent a cost-effective approach for producing bioactive fungal-inspired metabolites, especially when pursuing assembly of compounds with complex chemistry. This review aims at providing insights into heterologous production of secondary metabolites from filamentous fungi, which has been established as a potent system for the biosynthesis of bioactive compounds. Numerous advantages are associated with this technique, such as the availability of tools that allow enhanced production yields and directing biosynthesis towards analogues of the naturally occurring metabolite. Furthermore, a choice of hosts is available for heterologous expression, going from model unicellular organisms to well-characterised filamentous fungi, which has also been shown to allow the study of biosynthesis of complex secondary metabolites. Looking to the future, fungi are likely to continue to play a substantial role as sources of new pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals-either as producers of novel natural products or indeed as platforms to generate new compounds through synthetic biology.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences and Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK. f.alberti@warwick.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Fabrizio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Alberti
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, 24 Tyndall Avenue, Bristol, BS8 1TQ, UK.
authors.forename: Gary D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Foster
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, 24 Tyndall Avenue, Bristol, BS8 1TQ, UK.
authors.forename: Andy M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Bailey
mesh_terms: D001688:Biological Products / Q000378:metabolism*; D053898:Biosynthetic Pathways / Q000235:genetics*; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000379:methods; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D005658:Fungi / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D015870:Gene Expression; D005810:Multigene Family; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D013678:Technology, Pharmaceutical / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D001688:Biological Products; D011994:Recombinant Proteins
keywords: Fungi; Gene clusters; Heterologous expression; Natural products; Secondary metabolites