Title:Chitin Synthase Inhibitors as Antifungal Agents
Volume: 13
Issue: 2
Author(s): Preeti M. Chaudhary, Santosh G. Tupe and Mukund V. Deshpande
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Antifungal agents, Chitin synthase, Chitin synthase inhibitors, Nikkomycin, Peptidyl nucleoside antibiotics,
Polyoxin
Abstract: Increased risk of fungal diseases in immunocompromised patients, emerging fungal pathogens, limited
repertoire of antifungal drugs and resistance development against the drugs demands for development of new and
effective antifungal agents. With greater knowledge of fungal metabolism efforts are being made to inhibit specific
enzymes involved in different biochemical pathways for the development of antifungal drugs. Chitin synthase is one such
promising target as it is absent in plants and mammals. Nikkomycin Z, a chitin synthase inhibitor is under clinical
development. Chitin synthesis in fungi, chitin synthase as a target for antifungal agent development, different chitin
synthase inhibitors isolated from natural sources, randomly synthesized and modified from nikkomycin and polyoxin are
discussed in this review.
