1. Endophytes: Unexplored reservoir of bioactive natural products

Bioactive natural products play an important role in the production of several important anticancerous, antifungal and antimicrobial compounds. Due to the limited production of these metabolites in vivo and the increasing need to preserve the biodiversity, microorganisms could be the ultimate source of these novel bioactive products. Endophytes are the microorganism which spends its whole or part of the life cycle and shows no apparent symptoms of disease. Almost all vascular plants examined till date showed the presence of endophytes. Studies have reported the production of antitumor compounds vinblastine, vincristine and taxol from the endophytes. Considering the huge natural diversity they are relatively unexplored and could be the potential sources of bioactive compounds like alkaloids, terpenoids, flavonoids and steroids that could be beneficial for potential use in medicine, agriculture or industry. In addition they have been shown to be beneficial in plant growth, xenobiotics and phytoremediation. This review focuses primarily on the production of bioactive natural products from endophytes and their biotechnological and pharmaceutical applications. Correspondence/Reprint request: Dr. Ramesh Chandra, Department of Biotechnology, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, Jharkhand – 835215, India. E-mail: rameshchandra@bitmesra.ac.in Nisha Singh & Ramesh Chandra 2