Natural products – antifungal agents derived from plants Tasleem Arif a , J.D. Bhosale a , Naresh Kumar a , T.K. Mandal a , R.S. Bendre b , G.S. Lavekar a and Rajesh Dabur a * a Regional Research Institute (Ay), Central Council for Research in Ayurveda and Siddha, Nehru Garden, Kothrud, Pune 411 038, India; b School of Chemical Sciences, North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon 425 001, India (Received 1 December 2008; final version received 1 April 2009) A new spectrum of human fungal infections is increasing due to increased cancer, AIDS, and immunocompromised patients. The increased use of antifungal agents also resulted in the development of resistance to the present drugs. It makes necessary to discover new classes of antifungal compounds to cure fungal infections. Plants are rich source of bioactive secondary metabolites of wide variety such as tannins, terpenoids, saponins, alkaloids, flavonoids, and other compounds, reported to have in vitro antifungal properties. Since the plant kingdom provides a useful source of lead compounds of novel structure, a wide-scale investigation of species from the tropics has been considered. Therefore, the research on natural products and compounds derived from natural products has accelerated in recent years due to their importance in drug discovery. A series of molecules with antifungal activity against different strains of fungus have been found in plants, which are of great importance to humans. These molecules may be used directly or considered as a precursor for developing better molecules. This review attempts to summarize the current status of important antifungal compounds from plants. Keywords: antifungal; tannins; saponins; alkaloids; flavonoids; bioactive metabolites 1. Introduction The prevalence of resistance to antifungal agents significantly increased in the past decade. Resistance to antifungal agents has important implications for morbidity, mortality, and healthcare in the community. Humans and fungi share some of the same molecular processes; therefore, there is always the risk that what is toxic to the fungal cells will be toxic to the host cells. Patients with AIDS, organ transplant patients, patients receiving chemotherapy, and diabetes patients represent current medical challenges [1]. The drugs currently available to treat fungal infections have serious drawbacks such as the development of fungal resistance and toxic side effects. The broad-spectrum drug amphotericin B was the sole drug for nearly 30 years, and it is one of the few drugs that actually kill fungal cells, but can cause significant nephrotoxicity in the patients. The imida- zoles and the triazoles in late 1980s and early 1990s, respectively, were major advances which act by inhibiting processes of the fungal cell, but they have been found to result in recurrence of the infection and the development of resistance to the drug [2]. Therefore, there is need to search new, ISSN 1028-6020 print/ISSN 1477-2213 online q 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/10286020902942350 http://www.informaworld.com *Corresponding author. Email: rajeshdabur@yahoo.com Journal of Asian Natural Products Research Vol. 11, No. 7, July 2009, 621–638