Caspofungin enhances antifungal immunity in human blood

The genus Candida includes both harmless and clinically relevant species for humans. Candida albicans, one of the main causes of invasive candidiasis, can cause severe, life-threatening infections in immunocompromised individuals. Echinocandins—antifungal drugs that destroy the fungal cell wall—are primarily used to treat these infections.

Together with collaborators from Jena and Würzburg, researchers from the Fungal Septomics research group used an ex vivo infection model with human whole blood to investigate the systemic effects of echinocandins on immune cells. They were able to demonstrate that the efficacy of the echinocandin antifungal caspofungin is based both on its fungicidal activity and on its enhancement of host immunity. The results confirm the interactions between the drug, the host, and the pathogen in systemic candidiasis and suggest that echinocandins play a special role in shaping antifungal immunity.

The study was published in the journal microLife.

Shehata A, Schäuble S, Martin R, Aldejohann AM, Panagiotou G, Kurzai O, Hünniger-Ast K (2026) Caspofungin enhances antifungal immunity in human blood through transcriptional reprogramming. Microlife. 2026 Jan 30:7:uqag004. doi: 10.1093/femsml/uqag004. eCollection 2026. PMID: 4169645