Prevalence and Therapeutic Challenges of Fungal Drug Resistance: Role for Plants in Drug Discovery

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Lewis Marquez, Emory University; Cassandra Quave, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2020-04-01
• Publisher: MDPI
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics9040150
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Antibiotics
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 4
• Grant/Funding Information: This research received no external funding.
• Keywords: Candida auris; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; Extracts; traditional medicine; drug discovery; Aspergillosis; Mechanisms; Genome; ethnobotany; Medicine; antifungal resistance; multidrug resistant; Science & Technology; Infectious Diseases; Pharmacology & Pharmacy; Antifungal drug; Fluconazole; Essential oil; Cryptococcus
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Pharmacology; Health Sciences, Pharmacy; Biology, Microbiology; Health Sciences, Epidemiology

Abstract

Antimicrobial resistance is a global issue that threatens the effective practice of modern medicine and global health. The emergence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) fungal strains of Candida auris and azole-resistant Aspergillus fumigatus were highlighted in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) 2019 report, Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States. Conventional antifungals used to treat fungal infections are no longer as effective, leading to increased mortality. Compounding this issue, there are very few new antifungals currently in development. Plants from traditional medicine represent one possible research path to addressing the issue of MDR fungal pathogens. In this commentary piece, we discuss how medical ethnobotany—the study of how people use plants in medicine—can be used as a guide to identify plant species for the discovery and development of novel antifungal therapies.