Cargando…
Reinforcing the Immunocompromised Host Defense against Fungi: Progress beyond the Current State of the Art
Despite the availability of a variety of antifungal drugs, opportunistic fungal infections still remain life-threatening for immunocompromised patients, such as those undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation or solid organ transplantation. Suboptimal efficacy, toxicity, development o...
Autores principales: | , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2021
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8228486/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34204025 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof7060451 |
_version_ | 1783712754292490240 |
---|---|
author | Karavalakis, Georgios Yannaki, Evangelia Papadopoulou, Anastasia |
author_facet | Karavalakis, Georgios Yannaki, Evangelia Papadopoulou, Anastasia |
author_sort | Karavalakis, Georgios |
collection | PubMed |
description | Despite the availability of a variety of antifungal drugs, opportunistic fungal infections still remain life-threatening for immunocompromised patients, such as those undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation or solid organ transplantation. Suboptimal efficacy, toxicity, development of resistant variants and recurrent episodes are limitations associated with current antifungal drug therapy. Adjunctive immunotherapies reinforcing the host defense against fungi and aiding in clearance of opportunistic pathogens are continuously gaining ground in this battle. Here, we review alternative approaches for the management of fungal infections going beyond the state of the art and placing an emphasis on fungus-specific T cell immunotherapy. Harnessing the power of T cells in the form of adoptive immunotherapy represents the strenuous protagonist of the current immunotherapeutic approaches towards combating invasive fungal infections. The progress that has been made over the last years in this field and remaining challenges as well, will be discussed. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8228486 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-82284862021-06-26 Reinforcing the Immunocompromised Host Defense against Fungi: Progress beyond the Current State of the Art Karavalakis, Georgios Yannaki, Evangelia Papadopoulou, Anastasia J Fungi (Basel) Review Despite the availability of a variety of antifungal drugs, opportunistic fungal infections still remain life-threatening for immunocompromised patients, such as those undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation or solid organ transplantation. Suboptimal efficacy, toxicity, development of resistant variants and recurrent episodes are limitations associated with current antifungal drug therapy. Adjunctive immunotherapies reinforcing the host defense against fungi and aiding in clearance of opportunistic pathogens are continuously gaining ground in this battle. Here, we review alternative approaches for the management of fungal infections going beyond the state of the art and placing an emphasis on fungus-specific T cell immunotherapy. Harnessing the power of T cells in the form of adoptive immunotherapy represents the strenuous protagonist of the current immunotherapeutic approaches towards combating invasive fungal infections. The progress that has been made over the last years in this field and remaining challenges as well, will be discussed. MDPI 2021-06-06 /pmc/articles/PMC8228486/ /pubmed/34204025 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof7060451 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Review Karavalakis, Georgios Yannaki, Evangelia Papadopoulou, Anastasia Reinforcing the Immunocompromised Host Defense against Fungi: Progress beyond the Current State of the Art |
title | Reinforcing the Immunocompromised Host Defense against Fungi: Progress beyond the Current State of the Art |
title_full | Reinforcing the Immunocompromised Host Defense against Fungi: Progress beyond the Current State of the Art |
title_fullStr | Reinforcing the Immunocompromised Host Defense against Fungi: Progress beyond the Current State of the Art |
title_full_unstemmed | Reinforcing the Immunocompromised Host Defense against Fungi: Progress beyond the Current State of the Art |
title_short | Reinforcing the Immunocompromised Host Defense against Fungi: Progress beyond the Current State of the Art |
title_sort | reinforcing the immunocompromised host defense against fungi: progress beyond the current state of the art |
topic | Review |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8228486/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34204025 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof7060451 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT karavalakisgeorgios reinforcingtheimmunocompromisedhostdefenseagainstfungiprogressbeyondthecurrentstateoftheart AT yannakievangelia reinforcingtheimmunocompromisedhostdefenseagainstfungiprogressbeyondthecurrentstateoftheart AT papadopoulouanastasia reinforcingtheimmunocompromisedhostdefenseagainstfungiprogressbeyondthecurrentstateoftheart |