Book Review Cite This: J. Nat. Prod. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
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Review of New and Future Developments in Microbial Biotechnology and Bioengineering: Aspergillus System Properties and Applications the chapter addressing applications in cancer research, i.e., largely the search for secondary metabolites, although very promising, using cytotoxicity, antitumor, antiproliferative, and anticancer indiscriminately is not helpful; just because something is cytotoxic does not automatically mean it qualifies as anticancer. Second the editing is not uniformly precise. For example I could not understand what the following means: With ef forts of scientists of dif ferent disciplines for decades, we have reached a time where it is possible to obtain and apply materials that would not (p 199). There are other examples of poor editing, and with a publication that costs $215 more might be expected. In spite of the shortcomings highlighted and the lack of any real discussion on Future Developments as promised in the title, this book contains a lot of interesting material concerning Aspergillus and is worth reading by natural products scientists.
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New and Future Developments in Microbial Biotechnology and Bioengineering: Aspergillus System Properties and Applications. Edited by Vijay Kumar Gupta. Elsevier, The Netherlands. 2016. 266 pp. $215. 11 × 8 1/2 × 5/8 in. ISBN: 978-0-444-63505-1.
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he fungus genus Aspergillus is important, with many applications, some desirable and some not. Traditionally Aspergillus has been significant for a variety of reasons: Aspergillus oryzae is used in Koji, for example during the production of sake (the breakdown of rice polysaccharides), Aspergillus terreus was responsible for the discovery of the cholesterol-lowering statin lovastatin, and Aspergillus niger is used for citric acid production. Less attractive roles for Aspergillus include the production of aflatoxins and ochratoxins. There are five sections in this book including Biology and Biodiversity (there are between 160 and 339 species depending on which chapter is referred to; this may seem like a problem, but mycology is notorious for giving ranges in the number of species), Secretion and Protein Production, Secondary Metabolism, Tools, and Applications, the latter being the most extensive. Individual chapters address the biodiversity, sequencing, and evolution of Aspergillus; given the rapid advances in sequencing and annotation of fungal genomes, this is a challenging area to review. The section on protein expression and secretion contains just two chapters, both well written and covering a variety of topics. The two chapters in the secondary metabolism section cover both large and complex compounds, as well as volatile metabolites. The section on tools contains a single relatively brief chapter that covers traditional and more contemporary approaches for the study and manipulation of Aspergillus. The 11 chapters on applications cover a broad range of topics including ethanol production, the saccharification of lignocellulose, betaglucosidase, the regulation of lignocellulolytic enzymes, enzymes for the textile industry, the production of nanoparticles, bioremediation, plant growth promotion, applications in biomedical research and cancer research, and additional material on protein secretion and quality control. The mycology-oriented chapters are well written and quite comprehensive. The latter section on applications is very broad. Overall this is a useful and interesting collection of material and, given the range and accessibility of the content, recommended reading for students of fungal products, both those chemically and those biologically oriented. There are numerous diagrams and photographs that illustrate the text, and there are many references for each chapter. There is an index. The pictures on the cover show how photogenic these fungi are. Some negative comments chosen at random from a number of issues that this reviewer had with the book are as follows. In © XXXX American Chemical Society and American Society of Pharmacognosy
Cedric J. Pearce
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Mycosynthetix, Inc., Hillsborough, North Carolina, United States
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
The author declares no competing financial interest.
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.9b00211 J. Nat. Prod. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
