Molecular responses of Trichophyton rubrum to ambruticin and fludioxonil

PERES NT; GRAS DE; SANCHES PR; ROCHA LB; FALCÃO JP; ROSSI A; PRADE RA; MARTINEZ-ROSSI NM

Marburg

Conferencia; 11th European Conference on Fungal Genetics; 2012

Federation of European Microbiological Societies

The incidence of fungal infections is increasing worldwide, mainly due to the high prevalence of immunocompromised patients, promoting the search for new antifungal drugs essential to expand the options of viable therapies. Dermatophytes are one of the most prevalent fungal pathogens that cause cutaneous infections in both healthy and immunocompromised patients. Fludioxonil and ambruticin are antifungals that interfere with the osmoregulation system, leading to hyphal?]tip swelling, cell wall alterations, and subsequent cell death. In this work, we present evidence on the efficacy of these drugs on the anthropophilic dermatophyte Trichophyton rubrum. The results showed that low concentrations were able to inhibit fungal growth in all evaluated infection models. Moreover, according to the infection site, ambruticin differently modulates the expression of T. rubrum genes, showing a site?]specific response to antifungal drugs that may reflect the adaptive strategies used by T. rubrum to overcome the cytotoxic effects caused by the drug.