Yusuf Mufti, William Thomas, Moriah Sandy
One of the most important aspects of research involving endophytic fungi is the analysis of metabolites. Metabolites produced by endophytic fungi can be used as natural products in a wide array of industry. Endophytic fungi, or plant symbiotes, produce a host of antibacterial, antifungal, anticancer, and antiviral products. Although hundreds of these compounds have been identified and studied intensely, more recent research indicates that the overwhelming majority of fungal secondary-metabolites have yet to be discovered. A key roadblock in expediting this process is the efficiency and speed of widely used techniques. Current methods of fungal sub-culturing and metabolite identification employ large-scale culturing methods which are often1 both resource intensive and incredibly time consuming. The time it takes for fungi to grow to the biomass requisite for extraction can sometimes take weeks, greatly hindering the efficiency by which metabolites are extracted and identified. In order to truly begin to scratch the surface of the potential fungal secondary metabolites, more efficient methods are necessary. This project presents one possible alternative method for fungal growth and metabolite production adapted from earlier research. This microscale platform allows for expedited growth of endophytes, using fewer resources, such as agar and extraction solvent, at the same time. This device incorporates small culturing wells inset into slightly larger extraction wells, allowing for the exploitation of certain useful microfluidic processes. This would therefore allow for much faster extractions and identifications. This research seeks to analyze the effectiveness and feasibility of such a platform as it pertains to metabolite extractions and how the metabolite profiles differ between endophytes cultured on the microscale platform and traditional plates.
Comments
This is really cool! Do y’all have any ideas about the potential uses for the specific endophytic fungi that you’ve extracted so far? —Rob Reichle