Publication

Abstract : Iron homeostasis is an important process in many living organisms. Siderophores are the secondary metabolites produced by fungi essential to access the cellular components of the host for growth and development. Siderophores are encoded by different genes in the organism and perform different functions like extracellular iron acquisition, intracellular iron storage, conidial iron acquisition, as well as storage during infections. It has been shown that mutations in siderophore-coding gene have definite effect on fungal growth and viability. In recent era, fungal siderophores are highly focused area of research owing to its wide applicability in the field of agricultural sectors, environmental impacts, and health-care sectors. However, because of the limitation in culturing the fungal strains in laboratories, only about 5% of the fungal diversity has been partially exploited. Fungal research would offer an enormous source of novelty if the constraints of their isolation and culturing could be overcome. The potential in the siderophore research is high as there is a lacuna in the understanding of the siderophoric applications in various fields. This chapter aims to highlight the importance of siderophore research and their potential application to be considered for further work.