Research Advances in the Fungal World

Fungi are the renowned eukaryotic organisms. They are heterotrophs like animals, plants and most of the bacteria and studied under the separate branch of science 'Mycology'. They are abundantly found worldwide as yeasts, moulds, mushrooms etc. Due to the discovery of the different types of fungi, their working styles, habitats, their growing style, culture, sources and optimum locality, fungi have been classified separately from the other eukaryotes like animal and plants. In modern time, there are a number of diseases known which have been caused by fungi but many more significant and useful functions of them are also known and well discovered. Their various positive roles in medicines, remediation, food industries, agriculture, paper and pulp industries, chemical industries, biological researches etc. make them highly significant objectives for researchers and scientists. They also secrete a number of biologically valuable enzymes which further enhance their utility in the field of biotechnology. Their worldwide distributions make them easily available for the research. A number of researches in the field of fungal biotechnology are currently running in order to explore their momentous properties related to their nutraceutical and pharmaceutical values. In this regard, the deep study of their detailed properties, sources, culture, secretion of enzymes, isolation techniques, characterization, kinetics etc. are highly required. Handy nature, very easy language, scientific writing style and advanced research materials of this book make this interesting and highly helpful for the readers and researchers of the field of life sciences, biochemistry and biotechnology to conduct their research. Students of undergraduate and post graduate courses of life sciences/biochemistry/biotechnology will also highly benefit from this book. This book has recent, descriptive as well as up to date information on the recent developments in the world of fungi in the form 17 chapters (divided in two sections: section A and section B) prepared by admirable scientific collaborations. Each chapter has been written by worldwide eminent experts of their scientific research fields. This book covered several valuable and promising topics: (i) Diversity, distribution and classification of fungi. (ii) Isolation, identification and characterization of fungi. (iii) Study of the fungal culture, growth, production, optimization etc. (iv) Rhizospheric fungi, endophytic fungi, lichens, pathogens and secondary metabolites. (v) Fungal properties and applications, biologically potential mushrooms, nutraceutical applications, pharmaceutical applications and bioconversions of wastes materials etc. (vi) Secretion of the different enzymes from fungi (vii) Fungal enzymes, their purification, characterization, kinetics, properties and applications in the field of biotechnology.