title: New strategies for treatment of Candida vaginal infections.
abstract: New strategies for treatment of vaginal candidiasis have been recently exploited, due to widespread occurrence of this disease, in particular as recurrent infections, limitations of safe and efficacious antifungals as well as the lack of reliable preventative approaches. In this review new chemotherapeutic and immunotherapeutic strategies, based on the improved understanding of the immunopathogenesis of this prevalent human infection, will be discussed. The role of killer antibodies (or their molecular derivatives), i.e. antibodies that show antibiotic activity bearing the internal image of a yeast killer toxin (KT), characterized by a wide spectrum of microbicidal activity, and of the specific cell wall KT receptor as putative new therapeutic agents and preventative or therapeutic vaccines, respectively, will be particularly outlined.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Patologia e Medicina di Laboratorio, Sezione di Microbiologia, Universita degli Studi di Parma, Viale Gramsci 14, 43100 Parma, Italy. magliwal@unipr.it
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Magliani
authors.forename: Stefania
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Conti
authors.forename: Antonella
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Salati
authors.forename: Simona
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Arseni
authors.forename: Raffaele
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Frazzi
authors.forename: Lara
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ravanetti
authors.forename: Luciano
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Polonelli