Clinical Mycology Unit, Laboratory of Molecular Immunology, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Virulence. 2011 Nov-Dec;2(6):521-7. doi: 10.4161/viru.2.6.18520.
Over recent years we have witnessed the emergence of several non-vertebrate mini-hosts as alternative pathosystems for the study of fungal disease. These heterologous organisms have unique advantages, as they are economical, ethically expedient, and facile to use. Hence, they are amenable to high-throughput screening studies of fungal genomes for identification of novel virulence genes and of chemical libraries for discovery of new antifungal compounds. In addition, because they have evolutionarily conserved immunity they offer the opportunity to better understand innate immune responses against medically important fungi. In this review, we discuss how the insects Drosophila melanogaster and Galleria mellonella can be employed for the study of various facets of host-fungal interactions as complementary hosts to conventional vertebrate animal models.
近年来,我们见证了一些非脊椎动物小型宿主的出现,它们成为了研究真菌病的替代病原体系统。这些异体生物具有独特的优势,因为它们经济、伦理上方便,并且易于使用。因此,它们适用于真菌基因组的高通量筛选研究,以鉴定新的毒力基因和化学文库,以发现新的抗真菌化合物。此外,由于它们具有进化上保守的免疫性,它们为更好地理解针对医学上重要真菌的先天免疫反应提供了机会。在这篇综述中,我们讨论了如何将昆虫果蝇和黄粉虫作为传统脊椎动物模型的补充宿主,用于研究宿主-真菌相互作用的各个方面。