Question

Fungal infections are often more difficult to treat than bacterial infections. A) Describe in detail why this is true and describe how typical antifungals work. B) Using examples from recent (2018-2019) primary literature only, detail three antifungal therapies including type of infection treated, target of the therapy, and the discovery of the compound.

Answer 1

A. Fungal infections are generally very difficult to treat because unlike bacteria,fungi are eukaryotes.Antibiotics only target prokaryotic cells,whereas compounds that kill fungi also harm the eukaryotic animal hosts.Many fungi infections are superficial;that is they occur on the animal skin.Further more,fungi generally grow slowly and often in multicellular forms,they are more difficult to quantify than bacteria.

Many topical antifungals work by inhibiting production of ergosterol,a fundamental component of the fungal cell membrane and a wall.The antifungal medicines work by either killing the fungal cells - for example, by affecting a substance in the cell walls causing the contents of the fungal cells to leak out and the cells to die,preventing the fungal cells growing and reproducing.

B. The high rates of morbidity and mortality caused by fungal infections are associated with the current limited antifungal arsenal and the high toxicity of the compounds.The most common antifungal targets include fungal RNA synthesis and cell wall and membrane components though new antifungal targets are being investigated.The use of a mini host has been encouraging for in vitro testing because these animal models demonstrate a good correlation with the mammalian model.However the development of new antifungal strategies will reduce the therapeutic time and increase the quality of the patients.