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Fungal endophytes: an untapped source of biocatalysts

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Abstract

Horizontally transmitted endophytes are an ecological group of fungi that infect living plant tissues and survive in them without causing any disease symptoms. Even as facets of the endophyte-plant symbiotic relationship are being uncovered, there is an increasing appreciation of the different growth substrates exploited by endophytes and the vast repertoire of secreted enzymes of these fungi. These attributes exemplify the striking biodiversity of fungal endophytes and should motivate bioprospecting these organisms to identify novel biocatalysts that might help address challenges in medicine, food security, energy production and environmental quality.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Drs. E. J. Behrman and T. Ezeji (OSU) for comments on the manuscript, and to Andrew Wallace (OSU) for preparing Fig. 1. TSS thanks the United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF), New Delhi and the Fulbright Scholar Program (USA) for the award of a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Researcher grant to characterize fungal endophyte enzymes in VG’s laboratory at OSU, and the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India for funding the Indo-German Research Project BT/IN/FRG/09/TSS/2007 on endophyte enzymes. VG gratefully acknowledges funding support from the Northeast Sun Grant Initiative Award 52110–9615 from US Department of Transportation (via a sub-contract from Cornell University to T. Ezeji and V. Gopalan, OSU).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vivekananda Institute of Tropical Mycology (VINSTROM), RKM Vidyapith, Chennai, 600 004, India

    Trichur S. Suryanarayanan & Meenavalli B. Govindarajulu

  2. Department of Plant Biology and Plant Biotechnology, RKM Vivekananda College, Chennai, 600 004, India

    Nagamani Thirunavukkarasu

  3. Department of Biochemistry and Center for RNA Biology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA

    Trichur S. Suryanarayanan & Venkat Gopalan

Authors
  1. Trichur S. Suryanarayanan
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  2. Nagamani Thirunavukkarasu
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  3. Meenavalli B. Govindarajulu
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  4. Venkat Gopalan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Trichur S. Suryanarayanan.

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Suryanarayanan, T.S., Thirunavukkarasu, N., Govindarajulu, M.B. et al. Fungal endophytes: an untapped source of biocatalysts. Fungal Diversity 54, 19–30 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13225-012-0168-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13225-012-0168-7

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