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Review
. 2020 Oct 23;6(4):241.
doi: 10.3390/jof6040241.

Host Defense Peptides as Templates for Antifungal Drug Development

Virginia Basso  1 , Dat Q Tran  1   2 , André J Ouellette  1   3 , Michael E Selsted  1   2   3
Affiliations
Review

Host Defense Peptides as Templates for Antifungal Drug Development

Virginia Basso et al. J Fungi (Basel). .

Abstract

Current treatment for invasive fungal diseases is limited to three classes of antifungal drugs: azoles, polyenes, and echinocandins. The most recently introduced antifungal class, the echinocandins, was first approved nearly 30 years ago. The limited antifungal drug portfolio is rapidly losing its clinical utility due to the inexorable rise in the incidence of invasive fungal infections and the emergence of multidrug resistant (MDR) fungal pathogens. New antifungal therapeutic agents and novel approaches are desperately needed. Here, we detail attempts to exploit the antifungal and immunoregulatory properties of host defense peptides (HDPs) in the design and evaluation of new antifungal therapeutics and discuss historical limitations and recent advances in this quest.

Keywords: antifungals; defensins; host defense peptides; immunomodulation; multidrug resistance; peptidomimetics.

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Conflict of interest statement

M.E.S. is a founder and equity holder in Oryn Therapeutics, LLC. A.J.O and D.Q.T. hold equity in Oryn Therapeutics.

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