Biology and biotechnology of Trichoderma

By André Schuster, M. Schmoll. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 2010

708 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Fungi of the genus Trichoderma are soilborne, green-spored ascomycetes that can be found all over the world. They have been studied with respect to various characteristics and applications and are known as successful colonizers of their habitats, efficiently fighting their competitors. Once established, they launch their potent degradative machinery for decomposition of the often heterogeneous substrate at hand. Therefore, distribution and phylogeny, defense mechanisms, beneficial as well as deleterious interaction with hosts, enzyme production and secretion, sexual development, and response to environmental conditions such as nutrients and light have been studied in great detail with many species of this genus, thus rendering Trichoderma one of the best studied fungi with the genome of three species currently available. Efficient biocontrol strains of the genus are being developed as promising biological fungicides, and their weaponry for this function also includes secondary metabolites with potential applications as novel antibiotics. The cellulases produced by Trichoderma reesei, the biotechnological workhorse of the genus, are important industrial products, especially with respect to production of second generation biofuels from cellulosic waste. Genetic engineering not only led to significant improvements in industrial processes but also to intriguing insights into the biology of these fungi and is now complemented by the availability of a sexual cycle in T. reesei/Hypocrea jecorina, which significantly facilitates both industrial and basic research. This review aims to give a broad overview on the qualities and versatility of the best studied Trichoderma species and to highlight intriguing findings as well as promising applications.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Cell Biology, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/09494dc8960694207f9a1e971545cf654314e51c

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Citations in the corpus

A versatile toolkit for high throughput functional genomics with Trichoderma reesei (2012, background): “Trichoderma reesei (Hypocrea jecorina) is currently the most efficient producer of enzyme mixtures for degradation of plant materials [5].”
BOARD-INVITED REVIEW: opportunities and challenges in using exogenous enzymes to improve nonruminant animal production. (2011, background): “More information on the industrial production of enzymes and yeast expression systems can be found in various reviews (e.g., Dhawan and Kaur, 2007; Schuster and Schmoll, 2010).”
Trichoderma spp. – application and prospects for use in organic farming and industry (2014, background): “These fuels are obtained from the agricultural waste by adding cellulases or hemicellulases produced by Trichoderma species, e.g. T. reesei (Schuster and Schmoll 2010).”
Potential of fungi as category I Consolidated BioProcessing organisms for cellulosic ethanol production (2012, background): “The mesophilic fungus Trichoderma reesei is reported to be able to produce more than 100 g of cellulases per liter of culture broth [10], while the most productive cellulolytic bacteria produce only a few grams per liter.”
Trichoderma: A significant fungus for agriculture and environment (2016, background): “…competence in the use of nutrients, strong aggressiveness against phytopathogenic fungi and efficacy in supporting plant growth and enhanced defense mechanisms (Harman et al., 2004; Schuster and Schmoll, 2010; Pandya et al., 2011; Tripathi et al., 2013; Dagurere et al., 2014; Keswani et al., 2014).”