Genomics Strategies for Antifungal Drug Discovery - From Gene Discovery to Compound Screening

Title: Genomics Strategies for Antifungal Drug Discovery - From Gene Discovery to Compound Screening

Volume: 8 Issue: 13

Author(s): Debra Aker Willins, Marco Kessler, Scott S. Walker, Gregory R. Reyes and Guillaume Cottarel

Affiliation:

Keywords: antifungal, antibacterial, target validation, fungal genes, bacterial genes

Abstract: The use of genomics tools to discover new genes, to decipher pathways or to assign a function to a gene is just beginning to have an impact. Genomics approaches have been applied to both antibacterial and antifungal target discovery in order to identify a new generation of antibiotics. This review discusses genomics approaches for antifungal drug discovery, focusing on the areas of gene discovery, target validation, and compound screening. A variety of methods to identify fungal genes of interest are discussed, as well as methods for obtaining full-length sequences of these genes. One approach is well-suited to organisms having few introns (Candida albicans), and another for organisms with many introns (Aspergillus fumigatus). To validate broad spectrum fungal targets, the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae was used as a model system to rapidly identify genes essential for growth and viability of the organism. Validated targets were then exploited for high-throughput compound screening.

Cite this article as:

Willins Aker Debra, Kessler Marco, Walker S. Scott, Reyes R. Gregory and Cottarel Guillaume, Genomics Strategies for Antifungal Drug Discovery - From Gene Discovery to Compound Screening, Current Pharmaceutical Design 2002; 8 (13) . https://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1381612023394890