Fungal biofilms as a valuable target for the discovery of natural products that can cope the resistance of medically important fungi. A review of the latest findings (2017 to date)

BUTASSI E.; SVETAZ L.; CARPINELLA M. C.; EFFERTH T.; ZACCHINO S.

Antibiotics

MDPI

Año: 2021

2079-6382

Abstract: The development of new antifungal agents that target biofilms is an urgent need. Natural products, mainly from the plant kingdom, , represent an invaluable source of these entities. The present review provides an update (2017-May 2021) on the available infor-mation on essential oils, propolis, extracts from plants, algae, lichens and microorgan-isms, compounds from different natural sources and nanosystems with the capacity to in vitro or in vivo modulate fungal biofilms. The search yielded 42 articles, 7 involved es-sential oils, 2 Brazilian propolis, 6 plant extracts and one of each, extracts from lichens and algae/cyanobacteria. Twenty articles deal with the antibiofilm effect of pure natural compounds, with 10 of them including studies of the mechanism of action and 5 deal with compounds included in nanosystems. Thirty-seven manuscripts evaluated Candida spp. biofilms and two of each Fusarium and Cryptococcus spp. Only one manuscript in-volved Aspergillus fumigatus. From the data presented here, it is clear that the search of natural products with activity against fungal biofilms has been a highly active area of research in the last years. However, it also reveals the necessity of deepening the studies by (i) evaluating the effect of natural products on biofilms formed by the newly emerged and worrisome health-care associated fungi, C. auris, as well as on other non-albicans Candida spp., Cryptococcus sp. and filamentous fungi; (ii) elucidating the mechanisms of action of the most active nat-ural products.