Use of endophytic fungi in the Taxol anticancer drug production

Abstract

Taxol is a drug used in the chemotherapy of breast, lung, ovarian, prostate, liver cancers, and in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Taxol is obtained from Taxus spp. trees. It is found in low concentrations in the bark, needles and roots. The production is obtained by total chemical synthesis, but the process is very costly. The semi-synthesis is obtained from precursors like 10-diacetilbaccatina and baccatin III but has low production. On the other hand, the processes of in vitro culture of callus and cells are seen as a good strategy but in low yield. Therefore, it is urgent to find alternatives for the production of this drug due to the growing demand of Taxol and plant resource scarcity. The most promising way to large scale production of taxol is using in vitro fungi fermentation systems. The aim of this study was to present a review of the updated information in the scientific literature about the use of endophytic fungi in the production of this anticancer compound. We includes the definition of taxoids, the specific mechanism of biological action of Taxol on cancer cells, the enzyme involved in the biosynthesis of Taxol, quantitative methods for detection of taxol from fungi culture and the biotechnological alternative for Taxol production by bioavailability of endophytes of great biological importance from Taxus spp. Key words: apoptosis, biosynthesis, 10-deacetylbaccatin III, fungal Taxol, toxoids