Extracellular Enzymes and Bioactive Compounds from Antarctic Terrestrial Fungi for Bioprospecting

Laura Zucconi, Fabiana Canini, Marta Elisabetta Temporiti and Solveig Tosi
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Laura Zucconi: Department of Ecological and Biological Sciences, University of Tuscia, Largo dell’Università snc, 01100 Viterbo, Italy
Fabiana Canini: Department of Ecological and Biological Sciences, University of Tuscia, Largo dell’Università snc, 01100 Viterbo, Italy
Marta Elisabetta Temporiti: Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Pavia, via S. Epifanio 14, 27100 Pavia, Italy
Solveig Tosi: Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Pavia, via S. Epifanio 14, 27100 Pavia, Italy

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 18, 1-31

Abstract: Antarctica, one of the harshest environments in the world, has been successfully colonized by extremophilic, psychrophilic, and psychrotolerant microorganisms, facing a range of extreme conditions. Fungi are the most diverse taxon in the Antarctic ecosystems, including soils. Genetic adaptation to this environment results in the synthesis of a range of metabolites, with different functional roles in relation to the biotic and abiotic environmental factors, some of which with new biological properties of potential biotechnological interest. An overview on the production of cold-adapted enzymes and other bioactive secondary metabolites from filamentous fungi and yeasts isolated from Antarctic soils is here provided and considerations on their ecological significance are reported. A great number of researches have been carried out to date, based on cultural approaches. More recently, metagenomics approaches are expected to increase our knowledge on metabolic potential of these organisms, leading to the characterization of unculturable taxa. The search on fungi in Antarctica deserves to be improved, since it may represent a useful strategy for finding new metabolic pathways and, consequently, new bioactive compounds.

Keywords: adaptative strategies; bioprospecting; extreme environment; soil fungi (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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