Endophytic Fungi Are Multifunctional Biosynthesizers 7511. FUTURE PERSPECTIVES AND NEW PROMISING
ECOLOGICAL NICHES
An intensive search for new and more effective agents to deal with
increasing disease problems is now under way and this including the search in
new ecological niches for potential new sources. The marine environment was
introduced novel and rich source of functional metabolites which have
potentially useful medicinal applications (Debbab et al., 2010 and Ebada et al.,
2010).
In the last decades it was shown that marine natural products are of great
importance in the drug discovery process, particularly in the areas of deadly
diseases such as neoplasia and infections by multi-drug resistant pathogen.
Recently, much attention has been given to marine organisms due to their
considerable biodiversity that has been found in the wide spread oceans that
cover over 70% of the world. Consider the fact that many marine
microorganisms have a chemical system of defense, bioactive natural products
from marine microorganisms are released into the water and therefore are
rapidly diluted and accordingly they must be very potent materials to have the
desired end effect (Blunt et al., 2016; Debbab et al., 2010 and Ebada et al.,
2010).
A wider range of compounds were the predominantly reported compound
classes has been reported from soft coral, algae (green, brown and red) and
sponge. The cyclic depsipeptide kahalalide F (Figure 10) originally isolated
from the dietary source the green alga Bryopsis sp., and was introduced into
Phase I trials as a lead compound against prostate cancer (Hamann et al.,
1993), while other isolated compounds, like brominated diterpenes (prevezols
CāE) from red algae, Laurencia sp. (Figure 10) which displayed significant
cytotoxicity against the human tumors cell lines (Iliopoulou et al., 2003). A
new norsesterterpene acid named muqubilone were isolated from the Red Sea
sponge Diacarnus erythraeanus and display in vitro antiviral activity and
antimalarial with potent activity against Toxoplasma gondii without significant
toxicity (El Sayed et al., 2001). Therefore, the marine environment especially
sponges, soft corals and algae continue to be a noteworthy source of novel
metabolites and an extraordinary growing tendency for the characterization of
compounds from endophytic microbes that have been isolated from marine
sources (Blunt et al., 2016; Debbab et al., 2010 and Ebada et al., 2010).