Abstract: Fungal secondary metabolites ( SMs) have diverse bioactivities, and have been utilized in different fields including agriculture, food industry, medicine. Most of the secondary metabolites with novel structure and unique activities discovered in recent year are also derived from fungi. Therefore, the regulation of fungal secondary metabolism has been attracted much attention. As an important environmental factor in the growth of fungi, light has an important influence on cell development and regulation of metabolic synthesis.Light signals are converted into biological signals through photosensitive proteins in fungal, thereby the growth and secondary metabolism of fungal are regulated, which is of great research significance. Recent researches on the photobiological studies of fungi were analyzed in this review paper. From the perspective of secondary metabolism biosynthesis, this article summarized the effects of light on the synthesis of fungal natural active substances, and elaborated the molecular mechanism of light-regulated fungal secondary metabolism from epigenetics, global regulation and pathway specificity. Finally, the existing problems and application prospects were discussed and prospected.

Key words: fungi, light, secondary metabolites, regulation, photo response mechanism