Paradigm shifts in fungal secondary metabolite research

The 8th International Mycological Congress (IMC8; Cairns, Australia) hosted several plenary lectures, poster presentations, and even entire symposia dedicated to fungal secondary metabolites (extrolites). These advances, presented in this special issue, together demonstrated how the impact of molecular biology and genomics and the availability of sophisticated methods of analytical chemistry has resulted in paradigm shifts in our understanding of fungal secondary metabolism and its key role in fungal biology. Rather than focus on classical topics such as discovery of novel drug candidates and identification of toxins, here we address two major themes in this special issue: (1) the utility and importance of secondary metabolites and their genes in polyphasic taxonomy, phylogeny, and evolutionary history of kingdom Fungi (syn. Eumycota); and (2) the genetic processes regulating secondary metabolite biosynthesis. The history of fungal chemotaxonomy and some important classes of secondary metabolites are reviewed.