Breaking down fungal biofilm defenses provides potential path to treating sticky infections
“There are no approved antimicrobials to treat biofilms. The only way to treat a biofilm is to physically remove it from the body,” says David Andes, a professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
In a new study designed to better understand and combat these structures, Andes and his collaborators identified some of the key proteins in biofilms of the fungus Candida albicans that control both how they resist antifungal drugs and how they become dispersed throughout the body.
Candida is an enigmatic organism. The fungus often makes its home in and on healthy people, to no ill effect. But it can readily infect immunocompromised individuals, even those who are otherwise well.
The Andes lab has already identified a drug that can interfere with the fungus’s defense. They recently found that the antifungal turbinmicin — which Andes and his collaborators discovered in 2020 — can block Candida’s ability to secrete these proteins and other components of biofilms, making the pathogen more susceptible to drugs.
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