Marine Compounds with Anti-Candida sp. Activity: A Promised “Land” for New Antifungals

Abstract

Candida albicans is still the major yeast causing human fungal infections. Nevertheless, in the last decades, non-Candida albicans Candida species (NCACs) (e.g., Candida glabrata, Candida tropicalis, and Candida parapsilosis) have been increasingly linked to Candida sp. infections, mainly in immunocompromised and hospitalized patients. The escalade of antifungal resistance among Candida sp. demands broadly effective and cost-efficient therapeutic strategies to treat candidiasis. Marine environments have shown to be a rich source of a plethora of natural compounds with substantial antimicrobial bioactivities, even against resistant pathogens, such as Candida sp. This short review intends to briefly summarize the most recent marine compounds that have evidenced anti-Candida sp. activity. Here, we show that the number of compounds discovered in the last years with antifungal activity is growing. These drugs have a good potential to be used for the treatment of candidiasis, but disappointedly the reports have devoted a high focus on C. albicans, neglecting the NCACs, highlighting the need to perform outspreading studies in the near future.

Anti-Candidal Marine Natural Products: A Review

“…Although natural products from sponges and other marine organisms are well known for their antifungal activities [ 173 ], many concerns still remain over their other features, including structural complexity, supply and availability, standardization and quality control, possible drug–drug interactions, side effects, toxicity, and lack of clinical evidence [ 11 ]. Among them, supply chain management is the primary concern because extracting a single molecule from a complex mixture is a long and thorough process.…”

Marine-Derived Metabolites Act as Promising Antifungal Agents

“…Ergosterol is involved in neothynidioside's (21) mode of action. Adding exogenous ergosterol to S. cerevisiae reversed the antifungal activity of neothynidioside (21), suggesting that neothynidioside (21) binds directly to ergosterol. Then, an inhibitor of ERG11, ketoconazole, which can reduce membrane ergosterol levels, was used to perform a drug interaction experiment.…”

“…Neothyonidioside (21), a triterpene glycoside, is from the sea cucumber Australostichopus mollis [66]. It has comparable potency to polyene antifungals, with an MIC of 1 µM against S. cerevisiae.…”

“…These marine-derived compounds have exhibited various pharmacological activities, such as antifungal properties [18][19][20]. Furthermore, it has been proven that compounds of marine origin have attractive pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties that might contribute to treating IFDs caused by drug-resistant fungi [21]. Therefore, marinederived compounds have great potential for the development of new antifungal drugs.…”

Our current clinical understanding of Candida biofilms: where are we two decades on?

“…biofilms have high levels of tolerance to the most used antiseptics or antifungal agents (109)(110)(111), so finding alternative strategies for managing them are as equally attractive to augment new FDA approved antifungal drugs. Recent approaches include photodynamic therapy (112,113), naturals from plant essential oils and extracts (114)(115)(116) and honey (117,118), the use of probiotics (111,119,120) and prebiotics (121,122), marine compounds (123) and the development of novel compounds as antifungal drugs or immunotherapies (124)(125)(126) or the search for possible new drug targets (127,128). Drug repurposing (drug reprofiling, repositioning, or retasking) libraries, is an additional strategy we can employ.…”