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pubmed:abstractText |
Currently available antifungal drugs for serious infections are either fungistatic and vulnerable to resistance (azoles) or fungicidal but toxic to the host (polyenes). Cell wall-acting antifungals are inherently selective and fungicidal, features that make them particularly attractive for clinical development. Three classes of such compounds, targeted respectively to chitin synthase (nikkomycins), beta-1,3-glucan synthase (echinocandins) and mannoproteins (pradimicins/benanomicins), have entered clinical development. While nikkomycins and pradimicins/benanomicins are no longer in development, echinocandins have emerged as potentially clinically useful and three compounds, caspofungin (MK-991, L-743,872), micafungin (FK-463) and anidulafungin (LY-303366) are in late clinical development (Phase II and III).
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pubmed:affiliation |
DuPont Pharmaceuticals, Experimental Station, E400/3456A, P.O. Box 80400, Wilmington, DE 19880-0400, USA. nafsikag@aol.com
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