Fungi: A potential source of anti-inflammatory compounds

Abstract

Inflammation is a complex protective process that can become -dysregulated and can lead to a large number of diseases, the most common being rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel diseases, psoriasis and multiple sclerosis. Inflammation also plays a key role in other complex diseases such as alzeihmers, cardiovascular disease and cancer. A range of therapies exists for the treatment of inflammation-driven diseases such as steroids, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and anti-histamines. Despite some notable success, there is still major unmet medical need in the treatment of inflammatory diseases. Current therapeutic approaches for the treatment of inflammatory diseases are centered on cyclooxygenases (both COX-1 and 2) proinflammatory enzymes but present available drugs of this category are associated with undesirable gastrointestinal and cardiovascular side effects. Recent advances in drug research are focusing on bio-molecules such as proinflammatory cytokines, components of signal transduction and matrix degrading enzymes which are playing major roles in resolving inflammatory responses, might be new targets for treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases. In the present review several metabolites obtained from fungi with potential as anti-inflammatory agents are listed. The targets covered in this chapter are inhibitor of iNOS, NF-κB, AP-1, JAK, STAT, cytokines, cyclooxygenase (COX-1 and COX-2), 3α-HSD, XO and PLA2. The mode of action of some of the metabolites and a short description of some leads discovered is reviewed.