Fungal Endophytes as Potential Anticancer Candidate over Synthetic Drugs: Latest Development and Future Prospects

Industrialization imparted a significant impact on human health. Since the industrial revolution, there has been an exponential rise in the number of cases of cancer and other diseases. The manufacturing process and changes in lifestyle have introduced several carcinogenic substances that account for an increase in cancer worldwide. On a worldwide scale, cancer ranks as the second leading cause of mortality, with the predicted cancer burden on the world population to be 28.4 million cases in 2040, a 47% rise from 2020. The most advanced cancer treatment involves surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. Besides surgery and radiotherapy, cancer chemotherapy, which uses cytotoxic agents to kill fast-growing cancer cells, is an also effective treatment that inhibits or delays metastasis. Searching the new natural or synthetic cytotoxic as chemotherapeutics has become a new field of research. Endophytes are a natural source of potentially effective cytotoxic agents. Endophytes are microorganisms that dwell in living plant tissues and are rich in natural biologically active compounds. Fungal endophytes survive inside the plant tissues and do not have any harmful effects on plants. The cytotoxic activity of all these endophytic fungus-derived bioactive compounds accounts for their anticancer properties against different cancer cells. These endophytic microbes have not received much attention in the past, but their application in the pharmaceutical industry remains promising. Their ease of transformation mechanisms makes them an easily accessible source of anticancer compounds. They use special mechanisms to enter the tissues of their host plants or even coexist in a symbiotic association with them. Using these endophytic fungi, distinctive derivatives of bioactive metabolites can be produced. The ability of a fungal endophyte to establish itself successfully in the host plats depends on a delicate balance being retained between its pathogenicity as well as the plant’s defense mechanism, which is accomplished mostly by producing fungal endophyte metabolites. Consequently, this chapter aims to attract attention to a new area of research for developing anticancer metabolites by endophytic fungi. Insights gained from this research would eventually aid in creating safe, highly reliable, and cost-effective anticancer drugs.