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Updated: Jul 4, 2026

Live Imaging of Antifungal Activity by Human Primary Neutrophils and Monocytes in Response to A. fumigatus
Published on: April 19, 2017
Human antimicrobial peptides' antifungal activity against Aspergillus fumigatus
A Lupetti1, J T van Dissel, C P J M Brouwer
1Department of Infectious Diseases, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands. alupetti@biomed.unipi.it
Abstract:
In light of the need for new antifungals, we compared the in vitro antifungal activity of two peptides derived from human lactoferrin (hLF), i.e., hLF(1-11) and hLF(21-31), two analogs of histatin 5, further referred to as dhvar4 and dhvar5, and two ubiquicidin (UBI)-derived peptides, i.e., UBI 18-35 and UBI 29-41, with that of amphotericin B against Aspergillus fumigatus hyphae using the MTT assay. The results revealed a dose-dependent antifungal activity for all peptides, with dhvar5 being the most potent peptide. In addition, hLF(1-11), dhvar5, and UBI 18-35 were effective against A. fumigatus conidia. Furthermore, hLF(1-11) did not lyze human erythrocytes, whereas dhvar5 (>or=16 microM) and UBI 18-35 (>or=20 microM) were hemolytic. Based on these in vitro results and their effectiveness against infections in mice, we concluded that hLF(1-11) and dhvar5 are promising candidates for the development of new agents against A. fumigatus infections.
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