在目前已知的具有生物活性的微生物次级代谢物中约有50%是由丝状真菌产生的,其中包括人们所熟知的青霉素、环孢菌素A以及洛伐他汀等。鉴于丝状真菌次级代谢物在农业、医药和工业上的重要价值,它们的生物合成及其分子调控一直备受关注。丝状真菌次级代谢物的生物合成是一个复杂的过程,一般涉及多步酶学反应,该过程往往受到不同水平的调控。深入了解丝状真菌次级代谢的分子调控机制,可以为其产量的提高、新骨架化合物的发掘以及隐性次级代谢物的激活奠定重要的理论基础。本文以丝状真菌次级代谢分子调控为主线,重点介绍近40年来我国科研工作者在该领域取得的研究进展,并对这一领域未来的发展进行展望。

More than half of the activity secondary metabolites from microorganisms are produced by filamentous fungi. The metabolites that are well known include penicillin, cyclosporine A, lovastatin, and so on. Due to their importance in agriculture, medicine and industry, biosynthesis and regulation of these fungal secondary metabolites have attracted much attention. The biosynthesis of fungal secondary metabolites is a complex process which generally includes multistep enzymatic reactions. Commonly, the process is controlled by elaborate regulations at different levels. A good understanding of the molecular regulation of fungal secondary metabolism will lay a theoretical foundation for improving metabolite production, mining novel compounds and activating the silent gene clusters. In this review, we focus on molecular regulation of filamentous fungal secondary metabolite biosynthesis, especially the research advances of Chinese scientists in recent forty years are mainlyintroduced. Finally, we propose the future challenges and opportunities in this field.