Taxus associated fungal endophytes: anticancerous to other biological activities

Why Are There So Few Basidiomycota and Basal Fungi as Endophytes? A Review

“…Liu-Xu et al [1] reviewed studies on endophytes by pooling data from papers published over the past 25 years, focusing on advances made, and highlighting topics that remain unresolved. They pointed out that most studies centered around ubiquitous Ascomycota, while Basidiomycota were poorly represented, sentiments also expressed by Adhikari et al [2]. Yet, our studies of endophytes of the oil palm, Elaeis guineensis, in Thailand documented a number of basidiomycetes, initially identified by clamp connections in non-sporulating isolates, but when grown on selective media, produced micro fruitbodies with basidia and basidiospores [3,4].…”

“…This review highlights how little is known about endophytic Basidiomycota in comparison to their Ascomycota counterparts. Much research of endophytes has been powered by bioprospecting studies for antimicrobials, with 59.6% of papers on the endophytes of the tree Taxus devoted to the production of taxol [2]. Such studies of endophytic Basidiomycota are few, and consequently, their role in the health of trees, shrubs, seaweeds, and seagrasses remains to be explored.…”

“…With Ascomycota widely reported as ubiquitous endophytes and significantly higher than other taxonomic groups, it raises the question as to why there are so few endophytic Basidiomycota and basal fungi found? Despite being abundant in nature and thriving in a wide range of substrata and environments, only a handful of Basidiomycota and basal fungi have been reported as endophytes [1,2]. Several factors may account for this and are considered here.…”

“…(1) To determine the percentage occurrence of Basidiomycota and basal fungi as endophytes as documented in selected published papers and to compare this with that of endophytic Ascomycota. (2) To compare the diversity of fungi using culture-dependent (CD) and culture-independent (CID) methods based on a literature search. (3) To discuss factors affecting the diversity and occurrence of endophytic Basidiomycota and basal fungi.…”

Recent progress on the microbial mitigation of heavy metal stress in soybean: overview and implications

“…These events include the production of phytohormones, organic compounds, and genetic expression. These may be microbes or fungi ( Adhikari et al., 2023 ; Ghorai, 2023 ; Li et al., 2023 ). They form healthy relationships with plants.…”