Commercialization of antifungal peptides

• Published in: Fungal biology reviews 2013-01, Vol.26 (4), p.156-165
• Main Authors: Duncan, Vanessa M.S., O'Neil, Deborah A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antifungal peptides; Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs); Aspergillus; Candida; Community-acquired fungal infection; Cryptococcus; Fungal infection; Fusarium; Nosocomial fungal infection
• ISSN: 1749-4613; 1878-0253
• DOI: 10.1016/j.fbr.2012.11.001

There remains an urgent and very much unmet medical need for new antifungal therapies. Ideally, the next generation of treatments for nosocomial and community-acquired infections, including those caused by Candida spp, Aspergillus spp, Cryptococcus spp and Fusarium spp, will be more efficacious, with higher therapeutic indices and broader activity spectra than existing antifungal drug classes. Moreover, future antifungal therapeutics should have novel modes of action/drug targets that at least minimise, if not negate, the risk of acquired resistance developing in their target fungal pathogen populations. In short, developing the next generation of antifungals is a tall order and whoever is successful in doing so must address the various and well-described shortcomings of what remains at present, a very limited choice of largely small molecule-based therapeutics against the fungal infection spectrum. Novel peptide antifungals engineered from a template of mammalian, amphibian and even insect endogenous antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have clear potential to meet these requirements and consequent clinical success in a range of fungal diseases. This potential will hopefully be realised in the future as any number of the promising preclinical candidate antifungal peptides identified to date are developed further towards the clinic. The size of the ever-increasing market potential as well as unmet clinical need for new antifungal treatments is such that succeeding in delivering novel peptide antifungals as safe and potently efficacious therapies for the future will have a significant health-economic impact. ► Peptides are excellent candidates as the next generation of antifungal treatments. ► Clinical practice will benefit from the realisation of this therapeutic potential. ► Progress continues in our understanding of antimicrobial peptide (AMP) function. ► These advances are the foundation for the rational design of novel antifungal AMP. ► Some early preclinical antifungal peptides show potential as future drug candidates.