Effect of intranasal administration of Granulocyte-Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor on pulmonary Cryptococcus gattii infection.

Cryptococcosis, caused by infections with C. neoformans and C. gattii, presents a serious threat to global health and necessitates effective treatment strategies.

Selective Bacterial Targeting and Infection-Triggered Release of Antibiotic Colistin Conjugates.

In order to render potent, but toxic antibiotics more selective, we have explored a novel conjugation strategy that includes drug accumulation followed by infection-triggered release of the drug. Bacterial targeting was achieved using a modified fragment of the human antimicrobial peptide ubiquicidin, as demonstrated by fluorophore-tagged variants. To limit the release of the effector colistin only to infection-related situations, we introduced a linker that was cleaved by neutrophil elastase (NE), an enzyme secreted by neutrophil granulocytes at infection sites.