Anti-Fungal Efficacy and Mechanisms of Flavonoids

Abstract

The prevalence of fungal infections is growing at an alarming pace and the pathogenesis is still not clearly understood. Recurrence of these fungal diseases is often due to their evolutionary avoidance of antifungal resistance. The development of suitable novel antimicrobial agents for fungal diseases continues to be a major problem in the current clinical field. Hence, it is urgently necessary to develop surrogate agents that are more effective than conventional available drugs. Among the remarkable innovations from earlier investigations on natural-drugs, flavonoids are a group of plant-derived substances capable of promoting many valuable effects on humans. The identification of flavonoids with possible antifungal effects at small concentrations or in synergistic combinations could help to overcome this problem. A combination of flavonoids with available drugs is an excellent approach to reduce the side effects and toxicity. This review focuses on various naturally occurring flavonoids and their antifungal activities, modes of action, and synergetic use in combination with conventional drugs.

Synergistic Therapies as a Promising Option for the Treatment of Antibiotic-Resistant Helicobacter pylori

“…Flavonoids are very common in the plant kingdom, mainly as their pigments, and as a large group of heterogeneous compounds they perform a variety of functions essential to plant physiology, such as chemoattraction or chemorepulsion of pollinators, regulation of the life cycle, or protection against environmental stressors ( Table 1 ) [ 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 ]. Flavonoids have strong anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, which translates into their widespread use in ethnomedicine since the dawn of time.…”

Efficacy and Mechanisms of Flavonoids against the Emerging Opportunistic Nontuberculous Mycobacteria

“…Among 109 new antibacterial drugs, approved in the period 1981-2006, 69% originated from natural products [87]. One of the major groups of phytochemicals that has been studied extensively for their antimicrobial properties are flavonoids [66,88]. Flavonoids are organized with the structure of two phenyl rings fixed with the heterocyclic ring as C6-C3-C6 and arranged up to a skeleton of 15-carbon.…”

Inhibition of Candida albicans growth by steeping freeze-dried robusta ground coffee

“…Flavonoids disrupted the formation of the pseudohyphae of C. albicans during the pathogenesis (Serpa et al, 2012). Flavonoids often inhibit fungal growth with various underlying mechanisms, including plasma membrane disruption, the induction of mitochondrial dysfunction, and inhibiting the following: cell wall formation, cell division, RNA and protein synthesis, and the efflux mediated pumping system (Aboody;Mickymaray, 2020). Alkaloids disrupt the peptidoglycan components so the cell wall layers of yeast incomplete that it causes cell death.…”