EURESFUN - Strategies

1. To identify mutations resulting in resistance to antifungal drugs through target alterations in specific yeast and fungal pathogens.
   
2. To identify through systematic gene deltions/overexpression approaches transcriptional regulators of multidrug transporters mediating acquired and intrinsic resistance to antifungal drugs and to identify mutations in transcriptional activators leading to increased expression of efflux pumps.
   
3. To identify genes responsible for intrinsic resistance of biofilms to antifungals.
   
4. To study cell wall biogenesis and to identify mutations that alter susceptibility of fungal cells to antifungal drugs.
   
5. To identify cellular components necessary for immediate and long term drug response (for ex. Components of signalling pathways) and to evaluate the effect of identified components in susceptibility to known antifungal drugs.
   
6. To test novel therapeutic approaches through evaluation of the susceptibility to known antifungals in animal models of mutant strains with alterations in cellular components identified.
   
7. To develop novel therapeutic approaches through the identification and optimization of compounds inhibiting identified cellular components.
   
8. To build up a collection of strains displaying a wide range of susceptibility to known antifungals and associated with molecular epidemiology data.
   
9. To use distribution of susceptibility data to propose microbiological breakpoints of resistance.
   
10. To survey mutations in known resistance genes in the strain collection in order to develop optimal diagnostic tools for resistance surveillance.