Antifungal drugs are used to treat fungal infections. Fungi causes a variety of diseases in humans, from allergic syndrome to superficial, disfigured and life-threatening invasive fungal disease (IFD). Specifically, antifungal agent is a kind of drug that selectively removes fungal pathogens from the host, with minimal toxicity to the host. Infection caused by pathogenic and opportunistic fungi is an increasingly serious global health problem. Moreover, fungal cell walls and plasma membranes are the most important structures that provide putative new targets. They can be regulated to fight microbial infection.

Furthermore, echinocandins are a class of semi-synthetic antifungal lipopeptides. The structural feature of echinocandin is that the cyclic hexapeptide core is relevant to the variable configuration lipid side chain. Meanwhile, these drugs inhibit glucan synthase, which is responsible for the synthesis of β (1,3)-D-glucan synthase. Nonetheless, β(1,3)-D-glucan synthase is a key enzyme necessary for fungal cell wall integrity. Echinocandin showed good bactericidal activity against Candida albicans, Candida near smooth and Candida Kirschner. Today, we will introduce a broad-spectrum, and long-lasting echinocandin, Rezafungin.

Rezafungin (Biafungin) is a Broad-Spectrum and Long-Lasting Echinocandin with Antifungal Activity.

First of all, Rezafungin is a next-generation, broad-spectrum, and long-lasting echinocandin. Particularly, Rezafungin shows potent antifungal activity against Candida spp., Aspergillus spp., and Pneumocystis spp.

In the second place, Rezafungin shows potent in vivo efficacy as prophylaxis against Pneumocystis in an in vivo mouse infection model. Interestingly, Rezafungin showed that it could prevent the formation of Pneumocystis biofilm in vitro and reduce the viability of mature biofilm. Additionally, Rezafungin significantly reduced the nuclear and ascites load in mice.

All in all, Rezafungin is a next-generation, broad-spectrum, and long-lasting echinocandin with antifungal activity.

References:

Melanie Cushion, et al. VOLUME 25, ISSUE 3, SUPPLEMENT, S366, MARCH 01, 2019.