A bacterium from the sea squirt microbiome makes a natural product with antifungal activity Infectious diseases can pose a devastating threat to human health around the globe. As the risk rises, the world is running out of effective drugs to treat infections caused by deadly microbes. Many existing drugs have been rendered obsolete by the rapid emergence and spread of drug resistance. Thus, there is a dire need for new medicines with which to treat infectious disease. This is especially pressing for fungal killers. There are only three major classes of antifungal drugs, and resistance is rampant, leading to the death of ∼1.5 million people each year (1, 2). Success in developing effective new treatments depends on creative approaches, including those that harness the chemical diversity in nature, tuned over millions of years of evolution. In this spirit, on page 974 of this issue, Zhang et al. (3) embarked on a mission to discover new antifungals produced by bacteria that inhabit marine animals.

中文翻译：

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来自海洋生物中的虫子的药物

来自海鞘微生物组的一种细菌制成具有抗真菌活性的天然产物 传染病可能对全球人类健康构成毁灭性威胁。随着风险的增加，世界上用于治疗由致命微生物引起的感染的有效药物正在耗尽。由于耐药性的迅速出现和蔓延，许多现有药物已经过时。因此，迫切需要治疗传染病的新药。这对真菌杀手来说尤其紧迫。抗真菌药物只有三大类，而且耐药性猖獗，导致每年约 150 万人死亡 (1, 2)。开发有效的新疗法的成功取决于创造性的方法，包括那些利用自然界中化学多样性的方法，经过数百万年的进化调整。本着这种精神，在本期第 974 页上，Zhang 等人。(3) 着手发现由栖息在海洋动物中的细菌产生的新型抗真菌剂。