The families Xylariaceae and Hypoxylaceae (Xylariales, Ascomycota) represent one of the most prolific lineages of secondary metabolite producers. Like many other fungal taxa, they exhibit their highest diversity in the tropics. The stromata as well as the mycelial cultures of these fungi (the latter of which are frequently being isolated as endophytes of seed plants) have given rise to the discovery of many unprecedented secondary metabolites. Some of those served as lead compounds for development of pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. Recently, the endophytic Xylariales have also come in the focus of biological control, since some of their species show strong antagonistic effects against fungal and other pathogens. New compounds, including volatiles as well as nonvolatiles, are steadily being discovered from these ascomycetes, and polythetic taxonomy now allows for elucidation of the life cycle of the endophytes for the first time. Moreover, recently high-quality genome sequences of some strains have become available, which facilitates phylogenomic studies as well as the elucidation of the biosynthetic gene clusters (BGC) as a starting point for synthetic biotechnology approaches. In this review, we summarize recent findings, focusing on the publications of the past 3 years.

Xylariaceae 和 Hypoxylaceae 科（Xylariales，子囊菌门）代表了次生代谢产物生产者最多产的谱系之一。与许多其他真菌类群一样，它们在热带地区表现出最高的多样性。这些真菌的子座和菌丝体培养物（后者经常作为种子植物的内生菌被分离出来）已经导致许多前所未有的次生代谢物的发现。其中一些作为药物和农用化学品开发的先导化合物。最近，内生木聚糖目也成为生物防治的焦点，因为它们的一些物种对真菌和其他病原体表现出强烈的拮抗作用。新的化合物，包括挥发物和非挥发物，正在从这些子囊菌中不断被发现，而复合分类学现在首次允许阐明内生菌的生命周期。此外，最近一些菌株的高质量基因组序列已经可用，这促进了系统发育学研究以及生物合成基因簇（BGC）的阐明，作为合成生物技术方法的起点。在这篇综述中，我们总结了最近的发现，重点关注过去三年的出版物。