2. INTRODUCTION
• Fungi are heterotrophic eukaryotes which lacks chlorophyll.
• It gets the nourishment from other organisms which are dead or alive.
• Fungi influence our day to day life either directly or indirectly.
• Some are prized for its usefulness, while other are shunned for causing great
harm to both plants and animals.
Useful aspects of fungi
• Religious Importance:
• Greek and romans attached great importance to fungi, especially the mushrooms
• Appearance of Amanita muscaria is considered as warning for thunder and
lightning.
• In Mexico, Psilocybe mexicana has been used in their religious rituals. They
calls it “Sacred Mushroom”
3. . • Fungias food:
• Food value of is well-known since remote past.
• Fungi used as food include; morels, mushrooms, truffles, puffballs and non-
woody polypores.
• Morels; They belong to genus Morchelia and is popular dish in India.
• Puffballs; They are large, spherical white fructifications of Calvatia gigantea.
They are edible when young, before maturation of the gleba, and production of
spore
• Truffles; It is the fruiting bodyof a subterranean Ascomycete fungus,
predominantly one of the many species of the genus Tuber. Truffles are
ectomycorrhizal fungi and are therefore usually found in close association with the
roots of trees.
• Some of the truffle species are highly prized as a food in French and Italian
cuisine
• They are also used for making Oil and high quality Vodka.
4. • Mushrooms; Fruiting bodies of Basidiomycotina members, about 2000sp of
edible mushrooms. • They are either harvested wild or cultivated.
• Edibility may be defined by criteria that include absence of poisonous effects on
humans and desirable taste and aroma
Common edible mushrooms
• Volvariella volvacea (Paddy
straw mushroom)
• Agaricus bisporus(Button
mushrooms)
• Lentinus edodus(Shitakke
mushroom)
Wild Edible mushrooms
• Boletus edulis(Penny Bun),
• Agaricus arvensis(Horse Mushroom),
• Polyporus squamosus (Pheasant's back mushroom)
5. • Fungi, as Foodof Atta ants
• Some species of Atta ants, gather large
leaves and use it as a substrate on which they
grow fungi as food.
• Abundant fungal mycelium grow on the
decomposedorganic matter.
• Nutrient rich mycelium are then eaten by
ants.
• Fungi and Medicines
Antibiotics
• Substance of biological origin which inhibit the growth of bacteria.
• Alexander Fleming (1919) isolated Penicillin from Pencillium notatum.
6. Ergot
• Ergot is the sclerotium of Claviceps purpurea.
• It contain several alkaloids like ergotine, ergometrine, ergotaminine etc. which
are used to controlpostpartum hemorrhage.
• Ergot is one of the natural sourceof LSD( d-Lysergic acid diethylmide),which
has use in experimental psychiatry.
Steroid Conversion
• Steroids are widely used anti inflammatory, anesthetics, anti-sterility agents.
• Rhizopus and Aspergillus have capacity to synthesis valuable steroids.
• Ephedrine is extracted from Benz aldehyde, using Yeast.
• Ephedrine is widely used in asthmatic diseases.
7. • Industrial use of Fungi
Alcoholic beverages
: • Yeast ferment glucose to produceethyl alcohol and CO2
. • Saccharomyces cervisiae is used for productionof beer, wine, whiskey, gin and
rum. • Wines is produced from grapes by fermentation using Saccharomyces
ellipsoides.
Organic Acids:
• Many important organic acids are produced commercially by the biochemical
activities of many molds.
• Aspergillus niger is used in production of citric acid, while Rhizopus stolonifer is
used for manufacture of lactic acid and fumaric acid.
Cheese industry
• Pencillium roquefortii and P. camemberti are used for the production of cheese
Enzymes
• Many products ofhigh enzymatic activity like diastase,digestin etc.. Are
produced by Aspergillus flavus.
8. • Well known enzyme amylases are produced byAspergillus niger and A. oryzae.
Pigments
• Some fungi are grown commercially for extraction of pigments which are used
in preparation of various dye.
Vitamins
• Many fungus metabolites are rich sourceof vitamins, which are used as
nutritional supplements and in medicinal therapy.
• Yeasts are good sourceof vitamin B- complex and riboflavin.
• Ergosterol, which contain vitamin D is synthesized from number of moldsh
. • Riboflavin is also obtained from Ashbya gossypis, Eremothecium ashbyi,
Candida sp.
Fat production
• Certain fungi are good sources of fats
• Aspergillus nidulans, A.sidowsi, A.fisheri, Pencillium piscarum and P.javanicus
are common examples
. Hormones
• Gibberline, plant hormones that are produced bythe fungus, Gibberella fujikuroi.
• It is used to accelerate growth of several horticultural crops.
Organic Solvents
• Yeast is made in the manufacture of many organic solvents such as acetic acid,
lactic acid, succinic acid, amyl and isoamyl alcohol, glycerol, mannitol, ethyl
acetate.
Latex- exuding fungi
• Lentz(1954), the lactiferous hyphae of Lactarium contains latex which exudes if
the flesh in broken.
• Same condition of latex exudation is observed in the bleeding fruiting bodies if
Stereum gausapatum.
9. Fungi and Soil fertility
• Fungi decomposethe organic compound of dead plants and animals and its
excretions.
• They are the primary decomposers ofany ecosystem.
• The enzymes present convert essential elements into form in which they can be
used as new material.
• Fungi also prevent many inorganic substancefrom being lost by leeching action
. • Some yeast are known to be non-symbiotic nitrogen fixers, Rhodotorula and
Saccharomyces.
• Fungi as predators
• Some fungi obtain their food by killing amoeba, rotifers other protozoan and
nematodes
. • Eg: Nematophthora gynophila, are utilized for controlling nematodes.
Mycoremadiation
• Mycoremediation is a form of bioremediation
• The process ofusing fungi to degrade or sequester contaminants in the
environment
• Mycelium reduces toxins in-situ, through enzymatic activity.
10. • Some fungi are hyper accumulators, capable of absorbing and concentrating
heavy metals in the mushroom fruit bodies
• E.g.Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus)
Fungias Insectides(Entomogenousfungi)
• Several fungi are endoparasites on insects and other small arthropods such mite
and spiders
. • They include some chytrids almost all members of the Entomophthorales, many
yeast and many Deutromycetes.
• These fungi are utilized for controlling plant pests and insects.
• Coelomomyces and legnedium are the common endomogenous fungi
FungiandLuminescences
•
11. • Ability to producevisible light in the dark.
• Basidiomycetes like Armillaria mellea show bioluminescence.
• Luminant part; mycelium or fruiting body.
Fungias researchtools.
• Used as basic material for the study of various fundamental biological processes.
• They fast rate of reproduction.
• Require short period to complete life cycle
. • Productionof spore by meiosis
. • Neurosporahas become an ideal research material for geneticist.
• Rusch(1968), Physarum polycephalum, is a very good material for study of
DNA synthesis, morphogenesis ,mitotic cycle and many other cellular process.
