Antimicrobial activity of viridiofungins.

A family of aminoacyl alkyl citrate compounds called viridiofungins, are novel squalene synthase inhibitors. The compounds have broad spectrum fungicidal activity but lack antibacterial activity. Although the compounds inhibit squalene synthase, the first committed step in ergosterol biosynthesis, results presented in this paper show that inhibition of fungal growth is not related to inhibition of ergosterol synthesis.