ABSTRACT
Natural products are composed of a reservoir of privileged chemical scaffolds which have been naturally selected by microbes to specifically interact with a diversity of biological targets present in the environment, thereby providing a fitness advantage to the producing organism. The vast number and variety of chemotherapeutic agents isolated from microbial natural products-approximately 80% of all available clinically used antibiotics are directly or indirectly derived from natural products and used to treat bacterial infection have greatly contributed to the improvement of human health over the past century.
However, the mortality rate of invasive fungal infections is alarming and has increased significantly over the past decades, and early and accurate diagnosis being increasingly difficult. Furthermore, most antifungal drugs in use today are not completely effective due to the development of increasing resistance and undesirable side effects which limit their use. In this scenario, the development of new antifungal agents, preferably with novel mechanisms of action, is an urgent medical need. This chapter summarizes a selection of antifungal agents produced by microorganisms classified according to their mechanisms of action and provides a general description of the producing organisms.
