A Cationic Polymer That Shows High Antifungal Activity against Diverse Human Pathogens.

ABSTRACT: Invasive fungal diseases are generally difficult to treat and often fatal. The therapeutic agents available to treat fungi are limited, and there is a critical need for new agents to combat these deadly infections. Antifungal compound development has been hindered by the challenge of creating agents that are highly active against fungal pathogens but not toxic to the host. Host defense peptides (HDPs) are produced by eukaryotes as a component of the innate immune response to pathogens and have served as inspiration for the development of many new antibacterial compounds. HDP mimics, however, have largely failed to exhibit potent and selective antifungal activity. Here, we present an HDP-like nylon-3 copolymer that is effective against diverse fungi while displaying only mild to moderate to

SUBMITTER: Rank LA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5610528 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature