From fungal secretomes to enzymes cocktails: The path forward to bioeconomy

Bioeconomy is seen as a way to mitigate the carbon footprint of human activities by reducing at least part of the fossil resources-based economy. In this new paradigm of sustainable development, the use of enzymes as biocatalysts will play an increasing role to provide services and goods. In industry, most of multicomponent enzyme cocktails are of fungal origin. Filamentous fungi secrete complex enzyme sets called “secretomes” that can be utilized as enzyme cocktails to valorize different types of bioresources. In this review, we highlight recent advances in the study of fungal secretomes using improved computational and experimental secretomics methods, the progress in the understanding of industrially important fungi, and the discovery of new enzymatic mechanisms and interplays to degrade renewable resources rich in polysaccharides (e.g. cellulose). We review current biotechnological applications focusing on the benefits and challenges of fungal secretomes for industrial applications with some examples of commercial cocktails of fungal origin containing carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) and we discuss future trends. •Filamentous fungi secrete high amounts of various enzymes, called “secretome’, to fulfill their exodigester lifestyle.•Recent development of bioinformatics and proteomics tools facilitate the characterization of fungal secretomes.•The exploration of fungal secretomes allowed the discovery of new enzymatic activities.•Fungal secretomes offer flexible and convenient solutions for processing complex substrates (e.g. lignocellulose).•Fungal secretomes have found applications in several markets.