Promising Antifungal Activity of de Wild against Clinical Isolates: In Vitro and In Vivo Effects on Renal Cortex of Adult Albino Rats.

can cause various infections, especially in immunocompromised patients. Its ability to develop resistance to the current antifungal drugs as well as its multiple virulence factors have rendered the problem even more complicated. Thus, in the present investigation, we elucidated an in vitro and in vivo antifungal activity of methanol extract (ELME) against clinical isolates for the first time. A phytochemical identification of 64 compounds was conducted in ELME using LC-MS/MS. Interestingly, ELME exhibited antifungal activity with MIC values that ranged from 32-256 µg/mL. Furthermore, we investigated the antibiofilm activity of ELME against the biofilms formed by isolates. ELME displayed antibiofilm activity using a crystal violet assay as it decreased the percentages of cells, moderately and strongly forming biofilms from 62.5% to 25%. Moreover, the antibiofilm impact of ELME was elucidated using SEM and fluorescent microscope. A significant reduction in the biofilm formation by isolates was observed. In addition, we observed that ELME resulted in the downregulation of the biofilm-related tested genes (, , , and ) in 37.5% of the isolates using qRT-PCR. Besides, the in vivo antifungal activity of ELME on the kidney tissues of rats infected with was investigated using histological and immunohistochemical studies. ELME was found to protect against induced renal damage, decrease desmin and inducible nitric oxide synthase, increase alkaline phosphatase, and increase infected rats' survival rate. Additionally, the cytotoxicity of ELME was elucidated on Human Skin Fibroblast normal cells using MTT assay. ELME had an IC of 31.26 µg/mL. Thus, we can conclude that ELME might be a promising future source for antifungal compounds.