Fungi are an understudied, biotechnologically valuable group of organisms. Due to the immense range of habitats that fungi inhabit, and the consequent need to compete against a diverse array of other fungi, bacteria, and animals, fungi have developed numerous survival mechanisms. The unique attributes of fungi thus herald great promise for their application in biotechnology and industry. Moreover, fungi can be grown with relative ease, making production at scale viable. The search for fungal biodiversity, and the construction of a living fungi collection, both have incredible economic potential in locating organisms with novel industrial uses that will lead to novel products. This manuscript reviews fifty ways in which fungi can potentially be utilized as biotechnology. We provide notes and examples for each potential exploitation and give examples from our own work and the work of other notable researchers. We also provide a flow chart that can be used to convince funding bodies of the importance of fungi for biotechnological research and as potential products. Fungi have provided the world with penicillin, lovastatin, and other globally significant medicines, and they remain an untapped resource with enormous industrial potential.

中文翻译：

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真菌的惊人潜力：工业化利用真菌的50种方法

真菌是一种未被充分研究的，具有生物技术价值的生物。由于真菌居住的栖息地范围广泛，因此需要与各种各样的其他真菌，细菌和动物竞争，因此真菌发展了许多生存机制。因此，真菌的独特属性预示了其在生物技术和工业中的应用前景。而且，真菌可以相对容易地生长，从而使大规模生产成为可能。寻找真菌生物多样性以及构建活真菌集合，在寻找具有新颖工业用途的生物时都具有令人难以置信的经济潜力，这将带来新颖的产品。该手稿回顾了五十种可能将真菌用作生物技术的方法。我们为每种潜在的开发提供了注释和示例，并提供了我们自己的工作以及其他著名研究人员的工作的示例。我们还提供了一个流程图，可以用来说服资助机构相信真菌对于生物技术研究以及作为潜在产品的重要性。真菌为世界提供了青霉素，洛伐他汀和其他具有全球意义的药物，它们仍然是尚未开发的资源，具有巨大的工业潜力。