AUTHOR CONTACT:

M. Celeste Simon
Abramson Family Cancer Institute, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Phone: (215) 746-5532; Fax: (215) 746-5511; E-mail: celeste2@mail.med.upenn.edu.

View the PDF of this article at: https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=33107

Infection with certain fungi results in mucormycosis, which is a lethal but rare fungal infection for which there are no good therapeutics. Now, Ashaf Ibrahim and colleagues at UCLA have shown that an iron-binding drug known as deferasirox substantially improved survival and decreased fungal burden in mice infected with Rhizopus oryzae, the most common cause of mucormycosis in humans. Furthermore, the effects of deferasirox were synergistic with liposomal ampohotericin B, which is currently used to treat individuals with mucormycosis. As deferasirox has recently been approved by the FDA to treat iron overload in individuals with transfusion-dependent anemias, the authors suggest that their study provides support for clinical trials investigating the potential of deferasirox as an adjunct therapy for mucormycosis.

TITLE: The iron chelator deferasirox protects mice from mucormycosis through iron starvation

AUTHOR CONTACT:

Ashraf S. Ibrahim
Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.
Phone: (310) 222-6424; Fax: (310) 782-2016; E-mail: ibrahim@labiomed.org.

View the PDF of this article at: https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=32338