Effective Use Of D-penicillamine To Increase The Sensitivity Of Drug-resistant Fungi To Spectral Antifungal Drugs

D-penicillamine is a degradation product of penicillin, it can be used as a raw material drug, and can also be further processed into a penicillamine derivative as an intermediate. 

D-penicillamine has strong ability to chelate metal ions such as copper, zinc and mercury. It is widely used in clinically for Wilson disease (hepatic bean) caused by congenital copper metabolism disorder. In addition, it has obvious curative effect on diseases such as severe active rheumatoid arthritis, chronic active hepatitis, arthritis syndrome and so on.

D-penicillamine has no antibacterial properties, but relevant literature reports that the application of the combination of the D-penicillamine and the fluconazole antifungal drug in the treatment of drug-resistant candida albicans.

 Candida albicans is an important conditionally pathogenic fungus, widely spread in humans, usually causing acute, subacute or chronic infections, and is also one of the most important pathogens of hospital-acquired infections.

Candida albicans usually exists on the surface of healthy human mucosa, such as mouth, intestines, etc. Generally in the normal body, its number is small, and will not cause disease, but in patients with immune system damage or suppression, such as chemotherapy patients, organ transplant patients or people with AIDS can cause serious systemic infections.

The azole antifungal drugs represented by fluconazole are the first choice for the prevention and treatment of infections caused by Candida albicans. However, due to the frequent use of fluconazole in clinical treatment, the drug resistance of fungi gradually increases, which brings great challenges to the clinical treatment of deep fungal infections.

Lina Hao and Yiman Li from Jinan Children's Hospital ^[1] found that the combination of D-penicillamine and antifungal drugs showed a synergistic effect on drug-resistant Candida albicans, which can significantly improve drug-resistant Candida albicans Sensitivity to fluconazole can reduce the amount of fluconazole while achieving the same bacteriostatic effect, which is beneficial to eliminate the toxic and side effects caused by the accumulation of drugs in the body.

This discovery unearthed the new functions of D-penicillin in the field of antifungal, and provided new clues and ideas for overcoming the resistance of fungi and the development of antifungal drugs.

Related links: D-penicillamine

References: Application of D-penicillamine combined with fluconazole in the preparation of anti-fungal products CN110448554A