Penicillium genus as a source for anti-leukemia compounds: an overview from 1984 to 2020

Abstract

Penicillium is a widely explored genus due to its chemical diversity and associated biological properties; in addition, it represents an important source for cytotoxic compounds with good application perspectives. Based on these aspects, in this review, Penicillium compounds that presented activity against human leukemia cell lines are being listed and discussed. For this, a careful bibliographic survey was carried out in the main electronic databases, i.e. Scopus, SciFinder, Web of Science and Pubmed. Between 1984 and 2020, thirty seven original papers were selected, when using the search terms Penicillium and leukemia. The occurrence of l-asparaginase produced by some Penicillium spp. was also highlighted since this enzyme is being employed for acute lymphoblastic leukemia and lymphosarcoma therapies. Therefore, this overview aims to demonstrate the potential of metabolites biosynthesized by Penicillium fungi which can be applied in human leukemia therapies and opportunities for designing new lead compounds.

Keywords:

• Leukemia
• Penicillium
• natural products; L-asparaginase

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) under Grant 2018/04095-0 and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES – Finance Code 001) for the scholarship granted to ACC.