New agents targeting multidrug resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are urgently needed. Here, Chen et al. screened a collection of commercially available drugs for their ability to inhibit biosynthesis of staphyloxanthin, an important virulence factor that protects S. aureus from host oxidant killing. They found that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved antifungal agent naftifine is a reversible competitive inhibitor of diapophytoene desaturase (CrtN), an enzyme that is essential for staphyloxanthin biosynthesis. Naftifine attenuated the virulence of MRSA strains in mouse models of infection, revealing CrtN as an attractive and druggable target against S. aureus infections.
References
Chen, F. et al. Small-molecule targeting of a diapophytoene desaturase inhibits S. aureus virulence. Nat. Chem. Biol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.2003 (2016)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Crunkhorn, S. Antifungal agent blocks MRSA. Nat Rev Drug Discov 15, 160 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2016.35
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2016.35