Sloths may be slow, apparently boring animals, but their hair is fast becoming an intriguing avenue for scientists seeking new drugs, including antibiotics and cancer-fighting compounds.

 

A paper published in PLOS One this month (15 January) shows that sloth hair harbors a rich diversity of fungi whose extracts may contain a treasure trove of compounds active against bacteria, breast cancer cells and the parasites that cause malaria and Chagas’ disease.

 

The study looked at what was hiding in the outer hair of three-toed sloths (Bradypus variegatus), tree-dwelling mammals found in Panama’s lowland forests, collected from Soberanía National Park. It identified diverse species of fungi some of them potentially new, and went on to test 84 extracts from those fungi for their activity against disease-causing microbes and cells.

 

 

The researchers found 20 extracts to be active against bacteria, with five of them especially promising in terms of bioactivity and one effective against Gram-negative bacteria that are usually more resistant to antibiotics. The findings also suggest the compound may kill bacteria in a novel way, the authors write.

 

This is highly valuable and worth pursuing further, they say, because infections caused by multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria, are on the rise and few antibacterial agents that target these microorganisms are under development.

 

Gileno Xavier, a specialist on the B. variegatus sloth from the Rural Federal University of Pernambuco, in Brazil, says the study highlights the importance of conservation efforts.