Fungal Volatile Organic Compounds

The term volatile organic compound (VOCs) encompasses all carbon-based, low molecular weight compounds that easily enter the gaseous state due to their low boiling point and high vapor pressure. The compound term fungal VOCs describes a large group of the easily volatilized carbon compounds that have been associated with members of the fungal kingdom. It is important to remember that all published data on fungal volatilomes are “snapshots”. They do not capture the dynamic nature of volatile emissions nor do they tell us much about changing populations in communities. Moreover, such volatilomes do not differentiate between the volatiles that may have little or nothing to do with the fungal metabolome, those produced by resident complex bacterial microbiomes and those that are not directly related to the genomes of either the bacteria or the fungi. The sections below highlight some important findings related to fungal volatomes/volatilome - broadly defined - and some individual fungal volatiles.