ABSTRACT
Polar habitats are exciting places on Earth where psychrophiles and psychrotolerant fungi live. These fungi, through novel biochemical adaptations, survive the extreme environmental conditions, such as low temperature, intermittent freezing and ultraviolet light. Around 2.3% of the world’s fungal biota exists in the Arctic. Glacier habitats include one of the largest unexplored and extreme biospheres of Earth. The Arctic harbors 46 species of yeasts which have been isolated from various habitats, such as Siberian sands, sediments, and permafrost layers, Iceland soils, ancient Greenland ice cores, Svalbard glacier associated habitats , and glaciers in Alaska. Arctic fungi find applications in the field of biotechnology because they produce substances such as enzymes, polyunsaturated fatty acids, antifreeze proteins, and secondary metabolites. Cold-active enzymes, such as amylases, catalase, cellulases, invertase, lactase, lipases pectinases, and proteases produced by Arctic fungal strains find potential applications in the food, medicine, and detergent industries.
