The World Today
MADRID, 13 (EUROPA PRESS)
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global threat, especially among fungal pathogens. To optimize the use of available antifungals, researchers from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) have created a large database and software to investigate fungal mutations associated with antimicrobial resistance.
To address this challenge, an international team led by the Institute of Functional Biology and Genomics (IBFG, CSIC-USAL), the University of Salamanca and the Université Laval (Canada), together with the support of various institutions in Canada and the Netherlands, has created FungAMR, a database that compiles more than 50,000 entries and 35,000 genetic mutations identified in 95 species of fungi of clinical, agricultural and environmental interest, associated with 246 proteins and conferring resistance to a total of 208 antifungals.
This information has been manually extracted from more than 500 scientific studies and rigorously classified according to the level of experimental evidence, allowing users to evaluate the reliability and scientific support of each mutation. The work was recently published in the journal Nature Microbiology.
"The motivation for FungAMR was the urgent need for a comprehensive, detailed, and reliable database of antifungal resistance mechanisms. Having FungAMR available in a user-friendly and intuitive web interface will greatly facilitate its usability," emphasizes Christian R. Landry, a researcher at Université Laval.
In addition, the team has developed ChroQueTas (Chromosome Query Targets) software, a pioneering bioinformatics tool that allows for the analysis of fungal genomes and/or proteomes and the automatic detection of mutations that confer resistance to antifungals. Available as free software, ChroQueTas facilitates rapid, accurate, and scalable genetic screening of clinical and environmental strains.
"In the tests we performed on genomes from published studies, ChroQueTas has reliably reported previously described mutations, as well as identified previously unreported mutations in those genomes, demonstrating its potential as a key tool for genomic surveillance," says Narciso M. Quijada, researcher at the Institute of Functional Biology and Genomics (IBFG).
The work reveals that many mutations confer resistance to multiple antifungals simultaneously (cross-resistance), due to their similar modes of action, and that this resistance can arise from the same mechanism in different species. The widespread use of antifungals in agriculture—especially azoles—is identified as one of the main evolutionary pressures driving this problem. This situation makes the treatment of fungal infections difficult and underscores the urgent need to develop new therapies with alternative mechanisms of action.
FungAMR is now available as a web interface within the Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database (CARD, https://card.mcmaster.ca/fungamrhome) portal and will be updated periodically with new data. Users can contact the database via email at fungamr.db@gmail.com.
