Fungos filamentosos e química: velhos conhecidos, novos aliados

Abstract

Fungi are classically associated with problems such as deterioration and contamination of foods, human mycoses and diseases that bring damage to agriculture. However, the biotechnological potential of these organisms surpasses enormously their potential damage and the number of fungal species with importance in chemistry, pharmacology, environment, ecology, agriculture and food is extraordinary. In this field, the chemistry helped understanding fermentation processes and fungal metabolism, increasing the use of processes using fungal metabolites. The chemistry has also helped to control the presence of fungi when they are unwanted, providing preservatives and antioxidants for food and cosmetics, antimycotic agents and antifungals for agricultural use. However, the interdisciplinarity of the fungal metabolism study has brought new and interesting challenges. This review will address important aspects on cultivation, identification, use and biotechnological potential of fungi and their metabolites from the perspective of their historical use. Then current aspects of the use of fungi for the benefit of human life, as for the development of new drugs, environmental and ecological applications such as using bioremediation, in addition to presenting new frontiers for research, as the search for fungi in new habitats, the use of challenging growing conditions for elicitation of metabolic production and the use of modern analytical techniques to enlarge the biotechnological application of fungi will be presented.