Ntow-Boahene Winnie, Cook David, Good Liam
The Royal Veterinary College, Pathobiology and Population Sciences, London, England.
Blueberry Therapeutics Ltd., Macclesfield, England.
Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2021 Dec 24;9:780328. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2021.780328. eCollection 2021.
Rising global populations due to medicinal advancements increases the patient population susceptible to superficial and severe fungal infections. Fungi often implicated in these diseases includes the dermatophytes (., ., .) as well as species of the , . and genera In addition, increasing global populations leads to increasing agricultural demands. Thus, fungal infections of preharvested crops and stored food by plant pathogens such as and can have detrimental socioeconomic effects due to food insecurity. Current antifungal strategies are based mainly on small molecule antifungal drugs. However, these drugs are limited by poor solubility and bioavailability. Furthermore, antifungal resistance against these drugs are on the rise. Thus, antimicrobial polymers offer an alternative antifungal strategy. Antifungal polymers are characterised by cationic and hydrophobic regions where the cationic regions have been shown to interact with microbial phospholipids and membranes. These polymers can be synthetic or natural and demonstrate distinct antifungal mechanisms ranging from fungal cell membrane permeabilisation, cell membrane depolarisation or cell entry. Although the relative importance of such mechanisms is difficult to decipher. Due to the chemical properties of these polymers, they can be combined with other antimicrobial compounds including existing antifungal drugs, charcoals, lipids and metal ions to elicit synergistic effects. In some cases, antifungal polymers and nanocomposites show better antifungal effects or reduced toxicity compared to the widely used small molecule antifungal drugs. This review provides an overview of antimicrobial polymers and nanocomposites with antifungal activity and the current understanding of their antifungal mechanisms.
医学进步导致全球人口增长，使得易患浅表和严重真菌感染的患者数量增加。常与这些疾病相关的真菌包括皮肤癣菌（如……）以及……属、……属和……属的一些物种。此外，全球人口的增加导致农业需求不断增长。因此，诸如……和……等植物病原体对收获前作物和储存食物的真菌感染，可能因粮食不安全而产生不利的社会经济影响。目前的抗真菌策略主要基于小分子抗真菌药物。然而，这些药物存在溶解度和生物利用度差的局限性。此外，对这些药物的抗真菌耐药性正在上升。因此，抗菌聚合物提供了一种替代的抗真菌策略。抗真菌聚合物的特征在于阳离子和疏水区域，其中阳离子区域已被证明可与微生物磷脂和膜相互作用。这些聚合物可以是合成的或天然的，并表现出不同的抗真菌机制，包括真菌细胞膜通透性改变、细胞膜去极化或细胞进入。尽管这些机制的相对重要性难以解读。由于这些聚合物的化学性质，它们可以与其他抗菌化合物（包括现有的抗真菌药物、木炭、脂质和金属离子）结合以产生协同效应。在某些情况下，与广泛使用的小分子抗真菌药物相比，抗真菌聚合物和纳米复合材料显示出更好的抗真菌效果或更低的毒性。本综述概述了具有抗真菌活性的抗菌聚合物和纳米复合材料以及目前对其抗真菌机制的理解。
