Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2019 Sep 23;9(10):521.
doi: 10.3390/biom9100521.

Antifungal Agents in Agriculture: Friends and Foes of Public Health

Veronica Soares Brauer  1 , Caroline Patini Rezende  2 , Andre Moreira Pessoni  3 , Renato Graciano De Paula  4 , Kanchugarakoppal S Rangappa  5 , Siddaiah Chandra Nayaka  6 , Vijai Kumar Gupta  7 , Fausto Almeida  8
Affiliations
Review

Antifungal Agents in Agriculture: Friends and Foes of Public Health

Veronica Soares Brauer et al. Biomolecules. .

Abstract

Fungal diseases have been underestimated worldwide but constitute a substantial threat to several plant and animal species as well as to public health. The increase in the global population has entailed an increase in the demand for agriculture in recent decades. Accordingly, there has been worldwide pressure to find means to improve the quality and productivity of agricultural crops. Antifungal agents have been widely used as an alternative for managing fungal diseases affecting several crops. However, the unregulated use of antifungals can jeopardize public health. Application of fungicides in agriculture should be under strict regulation to ensure the toxicological safety of commercialized foods. This review discusses the use of antifungals in agriculture worldwide, the need to develop new antifungals, and improvement of regulations regarding antifungal use.

Keywords: Antifungal agents; agriculture; chemoinformatics; fungicides.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The annual global production of major crops during 2013–2017 (Source: FAOSTAT. www.fao.org. Access on: 06 November 2018).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Use of pesticides in the world during 2012–2016 (Source: FAOSTAT. www.fao.org. Access on: 17 December 2018).
Figure 3
Figure 3
The use of metagenomics in the development of new drug candidates. The left path illustrates metabolite evaluation to identify bioactive or toxic molecules overlaid with metabolic pathways and the selected drug candidate. The right path illustrates the molecular library screening used to generate computational models and calculation of the docking or free energy, leading to the production of a drug candidate.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Redecker D. Glomalean Fungi from the Ordovician. Science. 2000;289:1920–1921. doi: 10.1126/science.289.5486.1920. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Blackwell M. The Fungi: 1, 2, 3 … 5.1 million species? Am. J. Bot. 2011;98:426–438. doi: 10.3732/ajb.1000298. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Jampilek J. Potential of agricultural fungicides for antifungal drug discovery. Expert. Opin. Drug Discov. 2016;11:1–9. doi: 10.1517/17460441.2016.1110142. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Moore D., Ahmadjian V., Alexopoulos C.J. Fungus. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018. [(accessed on 10 January 2019)]; Available online: https://www.britannica.com/science/fungus/Importance-of-fungi.
    1. Köhler J.R., Casadevall A., Perfect J. The Spectrum of Fungi That Infects Humans. Cold Spring Harb. Perspect. Med. 2014;5:a019273. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a019273. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances

LinkOut - more resources