Taxol (Figure 8) was isolated from the endophytic fungus Taxomyces andreanae
(Stierle, Strobel & Stierle 1993) and is probably the most famous compound produced by
endophytic fungi. Since that study, the search for other endophytic fungi that produce
taxolstill continues to this day and in a recent study, the endophytic fungus Phoma betae
was isolated from leaves of Ginkgo biloba and found to be a potential source of taxol
(Kumaran et al. 2012). It was shown to display high cytotoxic activity against human
cancer cells in an apoptotic assay. Taxol or better known as paclitaxel, a natural source of
the anti-cancer drug, was actually first extracted from the Pacific Yew tree, Taxus
brevifolia (Schiff &Horwitz 1980). However, overuse of plants for this purpose will not only affect the biodiversity but has also been found to be time consuming and results in low
yields (Zhou et al. 2010). Hence, the discovery of endophytic fungi as producers of taxol
provides a suitable approach to solve the problem especially with the possibilities of
endophytic fungi producing metabolites similar to their host plant (Redko et al. 2006).
Adding to that, only a few studies have been undertaken on the fungal endophytes diversity
among Malaysian plant species (Hazalin et al. 2009). In the following, we discuss chosen
studies that display the ability of endophytic fungi as producers of bioactive compounds
with various pharmaceutical properties. It is noteworthy that an individual endophyte may
be able to produce not only one but several bioactive compounds.