Formicitoxins: membrane-targeting antifungal peptides from carpenter ant venoms.

Authors

Wei Zhang, Melina Sarabandi, Vinit Kumar

Published in

Trends in molecular medicine. Aug 14, 2026. Epub Aug 14, 2026.

Abstract

Fungal infections cause millions of deaths, yet clinical antifungals span only three drug classes. Koch et al. discover formicitoxins-35 venom peptides from carpenter ants-which are the first from any formicine species. Two outperform voriconazole in vitro and delay infection in vivo. Formicitoxins disrupt fungal membranes independently of existing drug targets.

PMID:
42595643
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 14 Aug 2026.

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