Plant scientists turn on athlete's foot

A green-fingered approach is being taken by scientists to help the millions of people who suffer the discomfort of itchy, sore feet.

Expertise gained in plant science field is helping beat Dermatophytes infection

Plant scientists from the University of Oxford are looking for molecular targets for common fungal conditions such as athlete’s foot and ringworm.

Sarah Gurr, Professor of Molecular Plant Pathology at Oxford, said: “We have learned much about the ways that fungi invade plants during the past few years. By contrast, however, we know very little about the life-style and invasion habits of the athlete’s foot fungus. It occurred to me that whatever we learnt in plants could be applied to medicine. This is an exciting part of our work which we hope will result in effective treatments for this uncomfortable human condition.”

The organisms responsible for causing Athlete’s Foot are Dermatophytes, literally meaning ‘skin plants’. Dermatophyte fungi thrive in warm moist conditions and grow on the surface of the skin and then invade the superficial layers of the skin. Scientists from the University of Oxford are looking at what controls their growth and adhesion to the skin.

While much of her team’s work focuses on rice blast - a fungus responsible for the loss of thousands of tonnes of rice across the world - some of the knowledge gained and techniques developed have proved transferable between this fungi and that responsible for athlete’s foot.

Using a technique called Expressed Sequence Tags, the researchers are identifying the genes implicated in building fungal cell walls, a crucial part of the fungi which enables it to grow and spread in both plants and humans. Professor Gurr’s team are exploring how the expression of particular genes correlates with the efficacy of different antifungal drugs. Their aim is to identify targets for which drug designers can develop new medicines that can be applied to the skin to prevent fungal infection.

Professor Nigel Brown, BBSRC director of science and technology, said: “Novel research on plant pathogens not only offers the potential for improved crop yields and food security but, as this project shows, may have direct applications to human health as well.”