Abstract
The ocean is considered to be a great reservoir of biodiversity. Microbial communities in marine environments are ecologically relevant as intermediaries of energy, and play an important role in nutrient regeneration cycles as decomposers of dead and decaying organic matter. In this sense, marine-derived fungi can be considered as a source of enzymes of industrial and/or environmental interest. Fungal strains isolated from different substrates, such as invertebrates, decaying wood, seawater, sediments, and mangrove detritus, have been reported to be producers of hydrolytic and/or oxidative enzymes, with alginate lyase, amylase, cellulase, chitinase, glucosidase, inulinase, keratinase, ligninase, lipase, nuclease, phytase, protease, and xylanase being among the enzymes produced by fungi of marine origin. These enzymes present temperature and pH optima ranging from 35 to 70∘C, and 3.0 to 11.0, respectively. High-level production in bioreactors is mainly performed using submerged-state fermentation. Certain marine-derived fungal strains present enzymes with alkaline and cold-activity characteristics, and salinity is considered an important condition in screening and production processes. The adaptability of marine-derived fungi to oceanic conditions can be considered an attractive point in the field of fungal marine biotechnology. In this review, we focus on the advances in discovering enzymes from marine-derived fungi and their biotechnological relevance.
Highlights
Marine microbial communities are considered important ecological components in marine environments due to their performance in biogeochemical processes (Sowell et al, 2008)
The occurrence of marine fungi has been reported in different substrates, and the ecology and phylogeny of this group are summarized in Jones (2000), Jones et al (2009, 2011), Jones and Pang (2012) and Richards et al (2012)
Taking into account that marine ecosystems are considered a poorly explored environment, and in light of the ongoing studies related to marine-fungal diversity based on culturedependent and independent approaches, it is reasonable to expect that new fungal taxa recovered from marine habitats will be reported in the short term
Summary
Marine microbial communities (bacteria, fungi, algae, plankton, and viruses) are considered important ecological components in marine environments due to their performance in biogeochemical processes (Sowell et al, 2008). Several studies have explored metabolites from marinederived fungi using a culture-dependent approach (Bugni and Ireland, 2004) In this sense, it is expected that a great number of isolates may be preserved in culture collections from different institutions all over the world, representing a potential source of microbial genetic resources for biotechnological applications.
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