EPIGENETIC MODULATION IN THE PRODUCTION OF FUNGAL ANTIMICROBIALS: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Fungal bioactive compounds can be used by pharmaceutical, agricultural or food industries, and their discovery and identification is closely linked to the methodologies applied in the process. The current knowledge of filamentous fungi genome mining has shown that many genes encoding biosynthetic pathways are silenced, thus limiting their ability to produce metabolites under commonly used laboratory conditions. These biosynthetic pathways may produce substances with antimicrobial potential, but more specific conditions are needed for their activation. This review article shows that the treatment of these fungi with epigenetic modulators such as DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) inhibitors and/or histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors is an approach capable of triggering activation of biosynthetic pathways previously silenced epigenetically. Due to the extensive metabolic diversity of filamentous fungi, epigenetic chromatin modulation appears to be an innovative methodology that can lead to great discoveries in the field of bioprospecting of compounds, not only antimicrobials, as well as to the proven possibility of maximizing the production of known compounds.