RNAi technology: A Novel approaches against fungal infections

Abstract

Despite the introduction of new antifungal agents, resistance to antifungal therapy continues to increase and the outcome of invasive fungal infections treatment is frequently suboptimal. A large amount of the recent effort in antifungal drug discovery has focused on a limited set of targets with functions known or expected to be important for fungal viability and virulence. A variety of techniques can be used to identify fungal genes of interest. Gene expression profiling, RNA mediated gene silencing and insertional mutagenesis are three main molecular genetics technologies used to identify and validate antifungal drug targets. The term of RNA interference (RNAi) refers to a cellular process by which a sequence-specific double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) inhibits the expression of a gene. This mechanism is strongly conserved in eukaryotes and has been documented to exist in different fungal species such as Candida albicans, Aspergillus nidulans and Penicillium marneffei. Many vital and virulence genes have been successfully knocked down using RNAi technology. RNAi would be regarded as a promising approach for the discovery of new gene targets for the design of fungus-specific antifungal agents. Here, we discuss about a novel approach and its application in designing new molecular antifungal targets.