7 - Filamentous fungal morphology in industrial aspects

Abstract

High-production capacity, secretion efficiency, metabolic diversities, and capability to carry out posttranslational modifications enables filamentous fungi to be widely exploited as cell factories in the production of metabolites, bioactive substances as well as native and heterologous proteins. Industrial applications of filamentous fungi gave a big boost to bioproducts such as enzymes, antibiotics, organic acids, mycotoxins, etc. Filamentous fungi have its intervention in almost all the industrial applications of bioproducts. Its morphology plays an extremely important role in industrial scale production of metabolites. Both the morphology, such as suspended or dispersed mycelia as well as pellet form have its own advantages and disadvantages. Scientifically, it is possible to control the morphology of fungi and exploit it according to the application. Several factors that affects its morphology have been discussed in this chapter which allows the process to be controlled. Genetic interventions have allowed to modify fungal strain according to our needs either to improve the production titer or to improve the properties of the product. In this chapter factors associated with fungal morphology as well as industrial applications of filamentous fungi have been discussed with emphasis on pulp and biofuel industry.