Morphological abnormalities of eukaryotic cell induced by microbial metabolites as indices to direct nobel physiological activities

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death. According to global cancer statistics released by the American Cancer Society [1], the total number of deaths from cancer in 2007 was 7.6 million and by 2050, 27 million new cancer cases and 17.5 million cancer deaths are projected to occur worldwide. Some antifungal substances can inhibit the growth of some tumor cells. They can be used as test model in cytotoxicity assays. Morphological deformations observed on mycelia of certain fungi induced by secondary metabolites have been known and were applied to screening for these compounds. This method detects morphological deformations of mycelia by culture broth of marine fungi, and has positive correlation with anticancer activity [2-4].