Anticancer and Antifungal Compounds from Aspergillus, Penicillium and Other Filamentous Fungi

Abstract

This review covers important anticancer and antifungal compounds reported from filamentous fungi and in particular from Aspergillus, Penicillium and Talaromyces. The taxonomy of these fungi is not trivial, so a focus of this review has been to report the correct identity of the producing organisms based on substantial previous in-house chemotaxonomic studies.

Chemical diversity from the Tibetan Plateau fungi Penicillium kongii and P. brasilianum

“…For example, the antibiotic penicillin is produced by Penicillium rubens (Houbraken et al 2011), the immunosuppressive drug mycophenolic acid is produced by Penicillium brevicompactum (Regueira et al 2011). There were many new compounds that have been found constantly in the following years with impressive anticancer and antifungal activities (Bladt et al 2013; Kozlovskii et al 2013; Tang et al 2015; Koul et al 2016). And many mycotoxins causing human and animal diseases were produced in some species of Penicillium , such as citreoviridin, citrinin (CIT), ochratoxin A (OTA), patulin (PAT), penitrem A, and penicillic acid (PA) (Lee & Ryu 2015; Oh et al 2017).…”

A Dysbiotic Mycobiome Dominated by <em>Candida albicans</em> is Identified within Oral Squamous Cell Carcinomas

“…Aspergillus, Alternaria, and Cladosporium have also been described as core oral fungal taxa [13,14]. Interestingly, some species of these genera, including A. tamarii and A. alternata, which were identified in our samples, are known to produce compounds with anticancer activity [38,39,40,41]. In addition, statins produced by A. tamarii have been shown to inhibit growth of C. albicans [40], which possibly explains why all samples with high abundance of this species had very low levels of C. albicans (Supplementary Table 3).…”

Potential of agricultural fungicides for antifungal drug discovery

“…Various fungi are also used for biotransformation of steroids that have been extensively used in medicine. [3][4][5] Currently, microorganisms are used for synthesis of nanoparticles within green nanotechnology; biosynthesis of gold, silver, gold-silver alloy, selenium, tellurium, platinum, palladium, silica, titania, zirconia, quantum dots, magnetite and uraninite nanoparticles by Aspergillus sp., Colletotrichum sp., Fusarium sp., Neurospora sp., Penicillium sp., Phoma sp., Trichoderma sp., Verticillium sp., yeasts and other fungal species has been reported. [6,7] Fungi are ubiquitous in nature and vital for recycling of nutrients contained in organic matter.…”