IN VITRO ANTIMYCOTIC EVALUATION AND PRELIMINARY COMBINATORIAL STUDIES OF IBUPROFEN WITH STANDARD ANTIFUNGAL DRUGS AGAINST ASPERGILLUS SPP.

Abstract

Objective: The prevalence of invasive mycoses is increased in the immunocompromised patients with an increase in resistance developed againstcurrent antifungal drugs. This has led to the need for discovering novel combinations of the antifungal drugs to combat against resistant pathogenic spp.This study mainly targets to evaluate the antifungal activity of ibuprofen (IBU) alone and in combination with the standard antifungal drugs (polyenesand azoles) against eight isolates of Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus flavus, and Aspergillus niger.Methods: The study was performed using the disc diffusion assay (DDA), microbroth dilution assay and spore germination inhibition assay. Moreover,cytotoxicity was checked by heamolytic assay.Results: Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of IBU against A. fumigatus and A. flavus using DDA is found to be in the range of 250-275 μg/disc while for A. niger isolates, the range was 500-575 μg/disc. Likewise, by broth microdilution assay and spore germination inhibitory assay, MICdetermined, were in the range of 500-750 μg/ml against A. fumigatus and A. flavus while for A. niger, it was 1000-1500 μg/ml.Conclusion: IBU demonstrated its antimycotic potential against all the eight isolates of Aspergillus spp. Moreover, preliminary combinatorialevaluation of IBU with the standard antifungal drugs reported by DDA revealed an increase in zone of inhibition as compared to the drugs alone.Further research regarding the confirmation of synergistic interaction between the selected drugs is in progress.