Abstract
The high incidence of fungal infections has become a worrisome public health issue, having been aggravated by an increase in host predisposition factors. Despite all the drugs available on the market to treat these diseases, their efficiency is questionable, and their side effects cannot be neglected. Bearing that in mind, it is of upmost importance to synthetize new and innovative carriers for these medicines not only to fight emerging fungal infections but also to avert the increase in drug-resistant strains. Although it has revealed to be a difficult job, new nano-based drug delivery systems and even new cellular targets and compounds with antifungal potential are now being investigated. This article will provide a summary of the state-of-the-art strategies that have been studied in order to improve antifungal therapy and reduce adverse effects of conventional drugs. The bidirectional relationship between Mycology and Nanotechnology will be also explained. Furthermore, the article will focus on new compounds from the marine environment which have a proven antifungal potential and may act as platforms to discover drug-like characteristics, highlighting the challenges of the translation of these natural compounds into the clinical pipeline.
Highlights
There is a wide range of fungal infections, from superficial, affecting skin, to systemic infections with invasion of internal organs [1]
The synergistic antifungal activity of Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnONPs) was evaluated along with common antifungal drugs, which revealed that their inhibitory efficiency can be increased in combination with ZnONPs, which could possibly reduce the overuse of these drugs, decrease their toxicity, and increase their antifungal activity [118]
One of the most remarkable examples is the extracellular synthesis of silver nanoparticles from filamentous fungi, like Fusarium solani, a pathogenic fungus isolated from infected onions
Summary
There is a wide range of fungal infections, from superficial, affecting skin, to systemic infections with invasion of internal organs [1]. The currently major available agents to treat invasive fungal infections can be grouped into four main classes according to their mechanism of action: polyenes, azoles, allylamines, and echinocandins (Table 1) [4] They all present drawbacks when it comes to spectrum of activity, drug–drug interactions, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, resistance mechanisms, and the toxicity of the compounds themselves. Its subcellular size is compatible with an intravascular injection and its high surface area is amenable to modification so that the drug is released in a specific target, reducing the systemic adverse effects and increasing the therapeutic compliance, by decreasing the usual dose and the frequency of administration [13,14] This targeted-specific action is possible since, at a nanomolecular level, it is possible to incorporate target ligands that allow a preferential binding of certain types of cells, by conjugation with antibodies and peptides on the surface of the transporters [15,16,17].
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