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NDTV
4 days ago
- General
- NDTV
Cannabis Compounds Show Potential Against Deadly Fungal Pathogen In Lab Studies
Recent laboratory research indicates that compounds derived from the cannabis plant, specifically cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabidivarin (CBDV), exhibit antifungal properties against Cryptococcus neoformans, a WHO-listed priority fungal pathogen responsible for severe infections like cryptococcal meningitis. In vitro studies have shown that these cannabinoids can inhibit the growth of this pathogen, suggesting potential avenues for developing new antifungal treatments. According to a media release by Macquarie University, the compounds also killed dermatophytes that cause common skin infections, and much faster than existing treatments. The study's findings pave the way for potential new treatments for fungal infections. Published in The Journal of Neglected Tropical Diseases (PLOS NTDs), the research offers promising prospects for addressing these infections. Fungal infections affect more than one billion people around the world each year, according to data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Whether it's athlete's foot, a yeast infection, or the potentially deadly lung infection pneumocystis pneumonia, fungal pathogens are a serious health threat with relatively few effective treatments. Macquarie University's Dr Hue Dinh, a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Natural Science, and Associate Professor Amy Cain resolved to tackle the growing threat of fungal infections with help from Professor Mark Connor and Dr Marina Junqueira Santiago from the Macquarie School of Medicine and collaborators at the Universities of Sydney and NSW. Having worked in the field of antimicrobial resistance, Dr Hue Dinh knew that developing an entirely new drug and getting it to market could take decades. It made more sense to work with pharmacological compounds already approved for use in humans for other conditions because their safety and mechanism of action are already well known. Cannabis connection Dr Dinh says one of the challenges in the research project was deciding which cannabinoids to test and against what. "Hundreds of natural compounds can be extracted from the cannabis plant, and we don't know which ones work," says Dr Dinh. Macquarie Medical School pharmacologist Professor Mark Connor, who has a strong background in researching cannabinoids, joined the team in their quest to target the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans, which causes deadly lung or brain infections. "When Cryptococcus neoformans gets to your central nervous system, it causes life-threatening meningitis. The mortality rate is very high, and it's really hard to treat," says Dr Dinh. The researchers found two cannabinoids - cannabidiol and cannabidivarin - that both quickly killed Cryptococcus neoformans in the laboratory, working even faster than current antifungal therapy. They tested the compounds against 33 other fungal pathogens from clinical, veterinary and environmental settings. This revealed the cannabinoids were effective in killing a range of Cryptococcus species as well as the fungal skin pathogens that cause athlete's foot.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Cannabis Compound Could Protect Us From Deadly Fungal Disease
A dangerous fungal pathogen has proven no match for what may be one of the most useful plants in nature. Scientists studying the chemical properties of cannabis have found it kills one of the most dangerous fungal pathogens in the world – in a laboratory setting, at least. Cryptococcus neoformans, a species of fungus behind cryptococcosis and cryptococcal meningitis, appears to be vulnerable to topical treatment with cannabidiol and cannabidivarin, compounds found in the plant Cannabis sativa. "When Cryptococcus neoformans gets to your central nervous system, it causes life-threatening meningitis," explains biologist Hue Dinh of Macquarie University in Australia. "The mortality rate is very high, and it's really hard to treat." Fungal pathogens pose a pretty significant threat to human health, with around 300 species known to cause diseases in humans, with varying levels of severity. Because pathogens such as fungi and bacteria continually develop resistances to drugs, new treatment options are continually needed to keep them at bay. One strategy is to look at medications that have already been approved for human use for other ailments. Dinh and her colleagues turned their research to cannabis, isolating five compounds to test on C. neoformans and a range of other pathogens. They isolated the fungal species in a lab, and applied the compounds. Cannabidiol (CBD), which is non-psychoactive, and cannabidivarin (CBDV), which is psychoactive, both killed C. neoformans adroitly, acting even faster than current antifungal treatments. They were also effective at eradicating the fungal pathogens responsible for such conditions as jock itch and athlete's foot. "Proteomics analysis revealed that the antifungal activity of CBD and CBDV was linked to destabilization of the membrane, alterations in ergosterol biosynthesis, disruption of metabolic pathways, as well as selective involvement of mitochondrial-associated proteins," the researchers wrote in their paper. It's one thing to kill a fungus in a petri dish, but quite another to observe the treatment working in a living system. To test their findings further, the researchers turned to Galleria mellonella, the greater wax moth. The larvae of this moth possess an innate immune response that is similar to that of mammals. They are also inexpensive to obtain, have short lifespans, and require no special equipment to keep, making them an excellent model for large-scale studies of infectious pathogens and the treatments thereof. Moth larvae were given small burn wounds, and then divided into groups. One group was left alone with just the burn wounds as a control; the remainder were infected with C. neoformans, and treated with different medicaments. One group was treated with CBD dissolved in dimethyl sulfide. Another group was treated with dimethyl sulfide without the CBD. Finally, the last group was treated using Amphotericin B, a medication used to treat serious fungal infections in humans. The results were striking. The survival rate of the larvae treated with CBD was significantly higher than the survival rate of the larvae treated with the dimethyl sulfide alone, and also higher than the survival rate of the Amphotericin B group. In fact, it was nearly as high as the survival rate of the control group – the larvae that had not been infected with the fungus at all. Although the treatment of infections that reach the lungs and brain is a bit more complicated, the result suggests that, at the very least, the topical application of cannabidiol might be effective at treating a range of fungal skin infections. "If we can demonstrate that these ones work well for common infections," Dinh says, "you could actually just get some CBD oil and then rub it on your skin to treat it." The research has been published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. Pooping Is a High-Stakes Event That Could Be Fatal For One Group Misophonia Has Genetic Links to Depression And Anxiety, Study Finds Experimental Drug Helped Cancer Patients Live 40% Longer in Clinical Trial
