Antifungal Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics
Agostinho Carvalho, Cristina Cunha, Claudia Galosi and Luigina Romani
from: Antifungals: From Genomics to Resistance and the Development of Novel Agents (Edited by: Alix T. Coste and Patrick Vandeputte). Caister Academic Press, U.K. (2015) Pages: 267-288.
Abstract
Fungal diseases represent an important immunological paradigm as they can result from either immune deficiency or hyper-inflammatory responses. The expanding number of patients suffering from life-threatening fungal diseases as a consequence of advances in medical care, alongside the frequently limited success of antifungal therapy, has resulted in unacceptable rates of mortality, morbidity and associated costs. Consequently, there is a pressing need for new treatments and preventive measures to combat fungal diseases and, towards this goal, safe and efficacious vaccines would constitute a major step forward. Thus, an improved understanding of the dynamics of the host-fungus interaction, together with the dissection of the mechanisms underlying heterogeneous immune responses to vaccines, set up the foundations to devise new successful vaccination strategies. This chapter reviews recent advances in innate and adaptive immunity to fungi, and highlights how antifungal mechanisms of resistance and tolerance might be exploited for the design of antifungal vaccines read more ...
