Bioprospecting of endophytic fungi for antibacterial and antifungal activities

Abstract Bioprospecting is a tool to find diversity of various endophytes and ways to commercialize them. Endophytic fungi reside in plant tissues being a vascular plant or grasses) having asymptomatic symbiotic association for part of or the entire life cycle. There are at least more than one endophyte inhabiting 300,000 plant species worldwide. These are considered a paragon of secondary metabolites, which have revolutionized the pharmaceutical industry by producing pharmacologically active substances such as alkaloids, flavonoids, steroids, terpenoids, phenolic acids, benzopyranones, chinones, quinone, tetralones, xanthenes, etc., depicting various activities such as antibacterial, antimycotic, antimalarial, antioxidant, anticarcinogenics, antihelminthic, etc., for example, the β-lactam antibiotic “penicillin” from Penicillium sp. and the antifungal agent “griseofulvin (C17H17ClO6)” extracted from Pencillium griseofulvum. More than 35% of endophytes are isolated from medicinal plants, and more than 80% of endophytic fungi produce biologically active compounds. The secondary metabolites and medicinal plants contribute more than 80% of natural drugs to the pharmaceutical industry or markets.