Potential of Gallium as an Antifungal Agent.

ABSTRACT: There are only few drugs available to treat fungal infections, and the lack of new antifungals, along with the emergence of drug-resistant strains, results in millions of deaths/year. An unconventional approach to fight microbial infection is to exploit nutritional vulnerabilities of microorganism metabolism. The metal gallium can disrupt iron metabolism in bacteria and cancer cells, but it has not been tested against fungal pathogens such as Aspergillus and Candida. Here, we investigate in vitro activity of gallium nitrate III [Ga(NO3)3] against these human pathogens, to reveal the gallium mechanism of action and understand the interaction between gallium and clinical antifungal drugs. Ga(NO3)3 presented a fungistatic effect against azole-sensitive and -resistant A. fumigatus strains (MIC

SUBMITTER: Bastos RW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6917619 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature