Fungal secondary metabolites: A potential source of anticancer compounds

Abstract Not long ago, new industrial products were developed using fungal secondary metabolites. Fungi have numerous secondary metabolites such as terpenoids, xanthones, steroids, phenols, chinones, tetralones, cytochalasins, enniatins, benzopyrones, flavonoids, alkaloids, cardiac glycosides, tannins, and saponins. In recent years, cancer has become a dreadful disease all over the world, and more than 6 million new cases are reported every year. Fungi have tremendous chemical diversity, and they also play important roles in the development of numerous clinically useful anticancer agents. The productivity and vulnerability of novel metabolites from microorganisms make them essential, readily available, renewable, and everlasting sources of novel structures bearing pharmaceutical potential. Shrewdness from fungal research could provide substitute methods of natural product drug discovery that could be reliable, economical, and environmentally safe.