Fungi of Antarctica

This book focuses on the fungi found in one of the most pristine regions on Earth: Antarctica. It discusses the fungal occurrence in all substrates of the region, including soil, seawater, lake and marine sediments, rocks, ice, and snow. It also addresses the impact of climate changes on these organisms, the genomic techniques developed to study them, and how a number of compounds, such as antibiotics and enzymes, produced by the Antarctic fungi can be used in medicine, agriculture and the chemical industry.

You find fungi in Antarctica and in nuclear reactors. They live inside your lungs and your skin is covered with them. Fungi are the most under appreciated and unexplained organisms, yet they could cure you from smallpox and turn cardboard boxes into forests. They could even transform Mars into Eden. There are vastly more fungi species than plants and each and every one of them plays a crucial role in life’s support systems. Join us on a journey into the mysterious world of Fungi to witness their beauty, unravel their mysteries and discover how this secret kingdom is essential to life on Earth, and may in fact hold the key to our future.

This book presents the exploration and exploitation of various bioactive metabolites obtained from fungi isolated from diverse habitats for pharmaceutical applications. Various fungal sources have been brought under one umbrella ranging from endophytes, marine fungi, endolichenic fungi to fungi existing in the extremophilic conditions like desert and Antarctica and Artic environment. The book tries to cover maximally the range of the pharmaceutical applications wherein these bioactive agents from fungi have been exploited or are in the clinical pipelines and primarily include antibacterial, antifungal, antibiofilm, anticancer, antioxidant, autoimmunological, anti-inflammatory, and anti-thrombotic diseases. The book further emphasizes on the novel strategies to screen or enhance secondary metabolite production. Some other topics includes peptides, nonpeptides drugs, pigments, and enhancement of production of Echinocandin and Kojic acid. The role of bioinformatics in drug discovery and biotransformations have also been discussed.