Fungal morphology: a challenge in bioprocess engineering industries for product development

Fungal biofactories are well established in bioprocess industries. They have been used for the production of essential biomolecules in chemical, food, and pharmaceutical industries. The high growth rate and the ability of fungal cells to hydrolyze wide range of complex and economic substrates make them among the superior microorganism for large scale production. In addition, they have high capacity for product excretion in high concentration which reduces the overall throughput of the production process and reduces the downstream cost as well. However, growth morphology in submerged culture is one of the greatest challenges in bioprocess industries. The same strain can exhibit extremely different morphologies with any minor alteration in cultivation conditions or medium composition, and thus affect the product yield. In this review, we present the fungal morphology in a complete and full-scale approach from spore induction in hyphal cells up to complete biopellet formation.