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Systemic infections of Candida albicans are a common and very serious complication in immunodeficient people such as AIDS patients, cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and recipients of organ transplants – and are thought my many complementary therapists to underlie a number of otherwise hard to diagnose health problems. While some treatments are available, their efficacy can be compromised by the emergence of drug-resistant strains of the yeast. However, a team from the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer of the University of Montreal have shown that a C. albicans enzyme, known as Hst3, is essential to the growth and survival of the yeast and that it was possible, in mouse models, to significantly inhibit the growth of the yeast with nicotinamide, a form of Vitamin B3. Both normal and drug-resistant strains of C. albicans were susceptible to nicotinamide. Moreover nicotinamide prevented the growth of other Candida species and Aspergillus fumigatus (another human pathogen) which suggest that it has broad antifungal properties. Modulation of histone H3 lysine 56 acetylation as an antifungal therapeutic strategy by Hugo Wurtele, Sarah Tsao, Guylaine Lépine, Alaka Mullick, Jessy Tremblay, Paul Drogaris, Eun-Hye Lee, Pierre Thibault, Alain Verreault and Martine Raymond - published in Nature Medicine. Courtesy of Medical News Today First Published in July 2010 Click here for more research on candida
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