Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2023 Oct 28;8(7):513.
doi: 10.3390/biomimetics8070513.

Various Biomimetics, Including Peptides as Antifungals

Elena Efremenko  1 , Aysel Aslanli  1 , Nikolay Stepanov  1 , Olga Senko  1 , Olga Maslova  1
Affiliations
Review

Various Biomimetics, Including Peptides as Antifungals

Elena Efremenko et al. Biomimetics (Basel). .

Abstract

Biomimetics, which are similar to natural compounds that play an important role in the metabolism, manifestation of functional activity and reproduction of various fungi, have a pronounced attraction in the current search for new effective antifungals. Actual trends in the development of this area of research indicate that unnatural amino acids can be used as such biomimetics, including those containing halogen atoms; compounds similar to nitrogenous bases embedded in the nucleic acids synthesized by fungi; peptides imitating fungal analogs; molecules similar to natural substrates of numerous fungal enzymes and quorum-sensing signaling molecules of fungi and yeast, etc. Most parts of this review are devoted to the analysis of semi-synthetic and synthetic antifungal peptides and their targets of action. This review is aimed at combining and systematizing the current scientific information accumulating in this area of research, developing various antifungals with an assessment of the effectiveness of the created biomimetics and the possibility of combining them with other antimicrobial substances to reduce cell resistance and improve antifungal effects.

Keywords: antifungal activity; antifungal peptides; combined antifungals; enzyme-like activity; fungal metabolites; growth inhibition; quorum response molecules.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Current trends in the development of biomimetic antifungals analyzed in this review.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Composition of AMP databases according to the source of peptides with antifungal activity. Total number of AFPs in each database was taken as 100%: 1311, 1144, 5968 and 5540 for APD3, CAMPR3, DBAASP and dbAMPs, respectively.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Examples of structures of natural and synthetic AFPs.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Approaches used in the development of biomimetic AFPs.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Kainz K., Bauer M.A., Madeo F., Carmona-Gutierrez D. Fungal infections in humans: The silent crisis. Microb. Cell. 2020;7:143. doi: 10.15698/mic2020.06.718. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Seyedmousavi S., Bosco S.D.M., De Hoog S., Ebel F., Elad D., Gomes R.R., Jacobsen I.D., Jensn H.E., Martel A., Mignon B., et al. Fungal infections in animals: A patchwork of different situations. Med. Mycol. 2018;56:S165–S187. doi: 10.1093/mmy/myx104. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Doehlemann G., Ökmen B., Zhu W., Sharon A. Plant pathogenic fungi. Microbiol. Spectr. 2017;5:1–23. doi: 10.1128/microbiolspec.FUNK-0023-2016. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ons L., Bylemans D., Thevissen K., Cammue B.P. Combining biocontrol agents with chemical fungicides for integrated plant fungal disease control. Microorganisms. 2020;8:1930. doi: 10.3390/microorganisms8121930. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Iqbal S.Z. Mycotoxins in food, recent development in food analysis and future challenges: A review. Curr. Opin. Food Sci. 2021;42:237–247. doi: 10.1016/j.cofs.2021.07.003. - DOI

LinkOut - more resources