Candida auris is hard to control because it colonizes human skin without symptoms, persists for weeks on hospital surfaces and equipment, resists multiple antifungal drug classes, and is frequently misidentified by routine lab tests. These features enable silent spread in healthcare facilities, delayed effective therapy, and outbreaks that are difficult to stop. Containment requires targeted screening, strict infection prevention, reliable diagnostics, and careful use of limited antifungal options.

Candida auris can scavenge carbon dioxide from microenvironments through Nce103 to sustain fitness when colonizing human skin.

In this work, authors utilise a prefractionation natural product extract screening platform, which uncovers coniotins, lipopeptaibiotics with broad antifungal activity and a mechanism of action that targets fungal cell wall β-glucan.

A research team at McMaster University has discovered a new drug class that could someday lead to breakthrough treatments for dangerous fungal infections. The new molecules, dubbed coniotins, were isolated from a plant-dwelling fungus called Coniochaeta hoffmannii — the samples of which were collected from the McMaster greenhouse, located on the university’s campus. Detailed recently in the journal Nature Communications, the discovery responds to a critical need for new antifungal medicines. “There is a huge, growing clinical need for new drugs that target fungal infections,” says Gerry Wright, a professor of biochemistry and biomedical sciences at McMaster and principal investigator on the new study. “Unlike antibiotics, of which there are dozens of different classes approved for use in clinics, there are really only three classes of antifungals on the market right now.” The reason for such a limited arsenal, Wright says, is two-fold. First, although disease-causing fungi are microscopic like bacteria and viruses, they’re actually more closely related to humans than they are to other microbes — “so things that kill fungi tend to kill us too,” he says. This makes finding antifungals that are safe for human consumption a real challenge. And then there’s the historical lack of urgency. Wright says that most fungi cannot withstand our internal body temperature, and usually die off before they can cause serious infection. It’s why fungal infections typically occur on us instead of in us — think athlete’s foot, for example. Because our bodies can generally handle these pathogens naturally, Wright says there’s been little incentive for pharmaceutical companies to invest in antifungal R&D — until recently. “Discovery remains a challenge today, but the level of urgency has changed dramatically over the past 15 years or so,” he says. “In 2009, a novel fungal pathogen called Candida auris emerged all over the world, and this fungus thrives at higher temperatures — and it can be extremely drug-resistant, too.” C. auris is particularly problematic for individuals with compromised immune systems, like cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. It can infect the lungs, the bloodstream, and the nervous system, and can be fatal. For these reasons, C. auris sits atop the World Health Organization’s list of priority fungal pathogens. It’s a good thing then that the Wright Lab’s new molecule exhibits potent activity against C. auris. Indeed, the research team showed that coniotins not only attack C. auris and several other fungal pathogens, but do so without harming human cells. The new molecules function unlike any other antifungal on the market. Where most target proteins and membranes, coniotins instead bind to the fungal cell wall. Wright, a member of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research at McMaster, likens the cell wall to the candy coating on an M&M — a protective shell that provides structural integrity for what’s inside. Disturbing this structure, as coniotins do, fundamentally changes how well the organism can survive. Xufei Chen, a postdoctoral fellow in Wright’s lab and first-author on the new paper, identified the new drug class through a process called prefractionation, which allows scientists to tease specific molecules out from complex chemical mixtures. “Since the golden age of antibiotic discovery, progress has slowed, due primarily to the frequent rediscovery of known compounds,” she says. “To address this, we implemented a prefractionation screening approach to target overlooked or masked metabolites. By integrating mass spectrometry, metabolomics, and computational analysis, I was able to discover this previously hidden molecule.” Using this same process, Wright’s lab recently discovered a new class of antibiotics. They have also used prefractionation to identify several other new drug candidates, which remain under study. “What’s really amazing is that we’ve only screened about five percent of the chemical library that we’ve built here at McMaster,” Wright says. “We have an immense, largely unexplored chemical space at our fingertips, and a cost-effective way to reduce the rediscovery of known compounds. Who knows what else is in there?” Wright’s team is eager to move coniotins along the development pathway. The next steps, he says, include producing it at scale through fermentation, and formulating the new drug class so that it may eventually be suitable intravenous (IV) delivery. Research Generative AI and the future of research writing: 2025 Hooker Distinguished Visiting Professor Lecture

For clinicians battling the persistent threat of fungal infections, Candida glabrata stands out as a formidable adversary, particularly due to its increasing resistance to frontline antifungal drugs l...

The following ECOFFs and breakpoints were established for C auris: amphotericin B: ECOFF: 2 mg/L, S: ≤0.001 mg/L, R: >2 mg/L; implying that the entire wild-type distribution is susceptible, increased ...

EUCAST ECOFFs have been determined for rezafungin, anidulafungin, micafungin, amphotericin B and flucytosine. They can be adopted to identify non-wild-type isolates and assist clinical breakpoint sett...

Introduction Invasive fungal infections (IFI) are a major clinical challenge, particularly in immunocompromised patients, and are associated with high morbidity and mortality. With the increasing pr...

Background Candida auris, a medically multidrug-resistant fungal pathogen, has recently emerged as the primary one that poses a global public health threat. Although C. auris was first described in Japan, numerous cases of C. auris infections have been reported globally and clustered in four major clades (I, II, III, and IV). In 2019 and 2024, a potential V clade in Iran and VI clade in Bangladesh were described. Nevertheless, limited pathogenicity data of the fifth clade are available compared to the other clades. Objectives and Methods This study evaluated the pathogenicity of fluconazole-resistant C. auris clade V and the therapeutic efficacy of amphotericin B in an immunocompromised mouse model, with C. albicans serving as a standard pathogen. The infection's advancement was tracked by evaluating mortality rates, fungal burden, and histopathological alterations. Results The C. auris clade V strain exhibited the highest fungal load in heart and kidney tissues on days 3, 5, 7, and 10, with the lowest load observed in brain tissue. In contrast, mice infected with the C. albicans strain showed the highest fungal load in the spleen on days 3, 5, and 10 and in the heart on the 7th day post-infection. Conversely, the average survival time for mice infected with C. auris was 14 days with drug treatment, demonstrating that AMB treatment significantly improved the survival rate of mice infected with C. auris clade V. Conclusion This study highlights the differing pathogenic behaviors of C. auris clade V and C. albicans. Although C. albicans exhibits greater virulence in untreated infections, C. auris clade V remains a serious threat, even at lower colony levels. The improved survival rates in infected mice treated with amphotericin B underscore the importance of effective therapeutic interventions. Further research is essential to enhance our understanding of these pathogens and optimize treatment protocols.

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Yeast bloodstream infections lead to high mortality and morbidity and are mostly observed in immunocompromised patients. In Africa, only a few studies have characterized clinical yeasts. To increase i...

Flesh-Eating Fungi on the Rise: Climate Change Could Unleash a Hidden Killer A new study warns that dangerous fungi capable

Candida (Candidozyma) auris is a multidrug-resistant yeast that emerged as a significant health care-associated pathogen. It is classified as an urgen…

Antifungal resistance affects fewer people than antibacterial resistance, but its effects are generally more catastrophic.

Evaluation of efficacy and tolerance of intravesical amphotericin B irrigation for the management of Candiduria

Oliver A Cornely shares guidance on tackling Candida infections in an evolving landscape, including rising resistance and taxonomic changes.