Discovery of Novel Sertraline Derivatives as Potent Anti-Cryptococcus Agents

Treatment of life-threatening cryptococcal meningitis (CM) is highly challenging due to the limited efficacy of the available antifungal drugs. Antidepressant sertraline (SER) has been proposed to be a potential antifungal agent for CM. However, clinical studies indicated that SER failed to achieve the expected therapeutic effects. Herein, novel SER derivatives were designed by scaffold hopping, and they showed improved anticryptococcal activity both in vitro and in vivo. In particular, compound D16 was identified as a promising anti-CM agent with a new antifungal mode of action. It acted by blocking the biosynthesis of ergosterol through the inhibition of Δ5,6-desaturase. This study provides a new target and a drug-like candidate for CM treatment.