A review of antifungal peptides: basis to new era of antifungal drugs

Abstract EN

The limited arsenal of antifungal drugs coupled with the growing number of drug resistant isolates of Yeast pathogens stresses the need for the development of new antifungal agents with new mechanisms of action.

Antimicrobial peptides, an active arm of the innate immunity, represent the natural arsenal against pathogens including the yeast.

This review is focused on studying the biophysical prosperities (net charge, stereospecificty, conformation, amphipathicity, hydrophobicity, and length) of the peptides that exhibit antifungal activity enclosed within the antimicrobial peptides database till September/2015.

Studying these peptides may be the key for discovering and developing of new potent antifungal agents as they have served as models in drug discovery.

Furthermore, the review discusses the main obstacles and barriers -specifically the salt sensitivity- that prevents antifungal peptides from becoming successful drug stories.

Proposed solutions from industry and nature are also discussed.

This review serves as a potential base for utilizing antifungal peptides in drug discovery.