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12 September 2011Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
New drugs hope for 'super-bug' yeast
Scientists have now found out how yeast cells identify and attach to human tissue in order to colonise it and cause an infection. They have identified the key features in this process and now plan to create and test prototype drug-like molecules that interfere with the yeast and prevent the infection from taking hold, following a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Yeast infections are the fourth most common cause of infection acquired by people in hospitals. In extreme cases in vulnerable patients, such yeasts, e.g. Candida albicans, can circulate in the bloodstream and spread throughout the body, causing systemic candidiasis. This is life-threatening in around half of patients when the infection spreads in this way.
There are already treatments that are effective at suppressing yeast infections and eliminating them from medical equipment, but microorganisms are constantly evolving to outsmart existing drugs and many strains of yeast have already become completely resistant to antifungal treatments. Scientists are seeking new ways to effectively kill them or prevent infection.
"We have shown the unique way that Candida albicans has evolved to recognise and latch on to a wide variety of human cells. A protein called Als adhesin on the surface of the cell give the yeast an ability to thrive throughout the human body, which is what makes it such a dangerous infection," said Dr Cota, lead author of the research. "We hope this new knowledge will allow us to create drug-like molecules that prevent the yeast cells from taking hold, by blocking this specific molecular mechanism."
The researchers say their findings pave the way for commercial vaccines and anti-fungal compounds that are effective against a wide range of infection-causing fungi. The next step is to test small, drug-like compounds in the laboratory to analyse whether they behave as expected. These could then be developed into the first stages of new treatments.
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P.S. Salgado et al.: Structural basis for the broad specificity to host-cell ligands by the pathogenic fungus Candida albicans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1103496108
