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A review: recent advances and future prospects of taxol-producing endophytic fungi

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Abstract

In the urgent search for more effective ways to treat cancer, new extraction methods of taxol from endophytic fungus have demonstrated high potential in increasing the efficiency of taxol extraction for more efficient and sustainable production of taxol and cancer treatment products. This paper summarizes recent advances in taxol-producing endophytic fungi, both in China and abroad, in the following areas: isolation and identification of endophytic fungi types, extraction and detection methods of endophytic taxol in plants, and improved efficiency of the extraction process. With the advancement of science and technology, new techniques in biotechnology, such as fungal strain improvement and recombining technique and microbial fermentation engineering, have increased the extraction yield from taxol-producing fungi, thereby improved the overall efficiency of taxol production.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Xiaojun Liu for his help in smoothing out the whole manuscript. This research is financially supported by the China National “863” High-Tech Program (project No. 2007AA021501), the Shanghai Science and Technology Committee (project No. 07DZ19724), and the Shanghai Leading Academic Discipline Project (project No. B209).

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  1. Plant Biotechnology Research Center, School of Agriculture and Biology, Fudan–SJTU–Nottingham Plant Biotechnology R&D Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, People’s Republic of China

    Xuanwei Zhou, Huifang Zhu & Kexuan Tang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Morgan–Tan International Center for Life Sciences, Fudan–SJTU–Nottingham Plant Biotechnology R&D Center, Fudan University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

    Lu Liu & Juan Lin

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  1. Xuanwei Zhou
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  2. Huifang Zhu
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Correspondence to Xuanwei Zhou.

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Zhou, X., Zhu, H., Liu, L. et al. A review: recent advances and future prospects of taxol-producing endophytic fungi. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 86, 1707–1717 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-010-2546-y

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