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Vitamin Biosynthesis as an Antifungal Target
The large increase in the population of immunosuppressed patients, coupled with the limited efficacy of existing antifungals and rising resistance toward them, have dramatically highlighted the need to develop novel drugs for the treatment of invasive fungal infections. An attractive possibility is...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6023522/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29914189 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof4020072 |
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author | Meir, Zohar Osherov, Nir |
author_facet | Meir, Zohar Osherov, Nir |
author_sort | Meir, Zohar |
collection | PubMed |
description | The large increase in the population of immunosuppressed patients, coupled with the limited efficacy of existing antifungals and rising resistance toward them, have dramatically highlighted the need to develop novel drugs for the treatment of invasive fungal infections. An attractive possibility is the identification of possible drug targets within essential fungal metabolic pathways not shared with humans. Here, we review the vitamin biosynthetic pathways (vitamins A–E, K) as candidates for the development of antifungals. We present a set of ranking criteria that identify the vitamin B2 (riboflavin), B5 (pantothenic acid), and B9 (folate) biosynthesis pathways as being particularly rich in new antifungal targets. We propose that recent scientific advances in the fields of drug design and fungal genomics have developed sufficiently to merit a renewed look at these pathways as promising sources for the development of novel classes of antifungals. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6023522 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-60235222018-07-05 Vitamin Biosynthesis as an Antifungal Target Meir, Zohar Osherov, Nir J Fungi (Basel) Review The large increase in the population of immunosuppressed patients, coupled with the limited efficacy of existing antifungals and rising resistance toward them, have dramatically highlighted the need to develop novel drugs for the treatment of invasive fungal infections. An attractive possibility is the identification of possible drug targets within essential fungal metabolic pathways not shared with humans. Here, we review the vitamin biosynthetic pathways (vitamins A–E, K) as candidates for the development of antifungals. We present a set of ranking criteria that identify the vitamin B2 (riboflavin), B5 (pantothenic acid), and B9 (folate) biosynthesis pathways as being particularly rich in new antifungal targets. We propose that recent scientific advances in the fields of drug design and fungal genomics have developed sufficiently to merit a renewed look at these pathways as promising sources for the development of novel classes of antifungals. MDPI 2018-06-17 /pmc/articles/PMC6023522/ /pubmed/29914189 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof4020072 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Review Meir, Zohar Osherov, Nir Vitamin Biosynthesis as an Antifungal Target |
title | Vitamin Biosynthesis as an Antifungal Target |
title_full | Vitamin Biosynthesis as an Antifungal Target |
title_fullStr | Vitamin Biosynthesis as an Antifungal Target |
title_full_unstemmed | Vitamin Biosynthesis as an Antifungal Target |
title_short | Vitamin Biosynthesis as an Antifungal Target |
title_sort | vitamin biosynthesis as an antifungal target |
topic | Review |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6023522/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29914189 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof4020072 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT meirzohar vitaminbiosynthesisasanantifungaltarget AT osherovnir vitaminbiosynthesisasanantifungaltarget |