Insights into process of isolation, characterization and biosynthesis of novel antifungal drugs from plant endophytes – A review

Abstract

Recent reports on mucormycosis and other fungal infections in post covid cases
highlights the search for new antifungal drug leads due to limitations of existing marketed
antifungal agents. The overall process of development of antifungal agents is time consuming and
needs large monetary investments. Therefore, process has been threatened by limited research in
this particular area by major pharmaceutical industries, owing to the heavier monetary burden and
low returns on investment’. In recent years microbial endophytes have emerged ‘as promising
substitute for plant secondary metabolites with potent antifungal, antibacterial, anticancer,
insecticidal, and antioxidant properties. Endophytes hold the plausible application in
pharmaceutical industries, due to their unique genetic and metabolic diversity as well as
promising activities. However, there is little success in utilizing pharmaceutical potential of
microbial endophytes. Pioneering research is enviable to establish and boost in vitro biosynthetic
potential of microbial endophytes’. Although many valuable papers on endophytes have been
published, we found no concise review that introduced and explained a workflow of endophytic
research. The objective here is to outline the techniques that, in our view, should be followed in
comprehensive studies on novel endophytes and their antifungal products, beginning from the
isolation and screening of endophytes producing antifungal agent, through the production and
purification of the novel antifungal compounds and finally, their characterization. This review on
endophytes can assist not only to researchers whose studies are dedicated to antifungal producing
endophytes, but can also be applied to other classes of bioactive products of endophytes.