ABSTRACT
Taxol is an effective anticancer drug which is used widely for the treatment of a variety of cancers. Taxol is normally isolated from the bark of the yew trees. Since obtaining Taxol from this source requires destruction of yew trees, researchers were thinking to find other sources for producing this substance. Fortunately, Iranian yew consists of different species of endophytic fungi that are able to produce Taxol. The aim of this study was to find and isolate Taxol-producing endophytes fungi from Iranian yew. To isolate endophytic fungi, stem and twig were collected from yew trees in north forests of Iran. After superficial sterilization, samples were placed on the surface of potato dextrose agar [PDA] medium in Petri plate. After some days, emerged fungi were isolated in the plates, some individual hyphal tips of the fungi were transferred to new PDA medium and this was repeated three times for fungus purity. The ability of fungus to make Taxol was substantiated by HPLC analyses. HPLC separation was performed using a kromasil C18 column. Data were analyzed using Duncan's test. From a total of 80 isolated fungi from Iranian yew, five fungi were observed to produce Taxol. Among these fungi, TbPm4 produced the highest amount of Taxol [21/74 micrig/1]. The results of this study demonstrated that isolated endophytes fungi from Iranian yew tree have capability to produce Taxol