WASHINGTON, June 23 (UPI) -- Most antifungal drugs do not work that well, and often they affect other organs, leading researchers to seek a new class of drugs to fight fungal infections.
Fungal infections are found most commonly in patients with conditions that compromise the immune system, such as AIDS, or who are being treated with immunosuppressives, such as people with cancer.
"Even with treatment, the mortality rate of invasive fungal infections is over 50 percent," said Maurizio Del Poeta, M.D., a professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at Stony Brook University, in a press release. "The drugs don't work that well. They are toxic, so they affect other organs, and they are static, meaning they may be able to stop a fungus from replicating but they are not able to kill the fungus."
Fungal cells cannot replicate without the presence of the lipid glucosylceramide, leading researchers to discover two compounds, BHBM and DO, which in lab tests were successful against pathogenic fungi and tolerated well when used with animals.
The study is published in mBio.
