Department of Pediatrics, Medicine and Medical Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America.
U.S. Geological Survey, National Wildlife Health Center, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America.
PLoS Pathog. 2024 Aug 29;20(8):e1012342. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1012342. eCollection 2024 Aug.
The emergence of white-nose syndrome (WNS) in North America has resulted in mass mortalities of hibernating bats and total extirpation of local populations. The need to mitigate this disease has stirred a significant body of research to understand its pathogenesis. Pseudogymnoascus destructans, the causative agent of WNS, is a psychrophilic (cold-loving) fungus that resides within the class Leotiomycetes, which contains mainly plant pathogens and is unrelated to other consequential pathogens of animals. In this review, we revisit the unique biology of hibernating bats and P. destructans and provide an updated analysis of the stages and mechanisms of WNS progression. The extreme life history of hibernating bats, the psychrophilic nature of P. destructans, and its evolutionary distance from other well-characterized animal-infecting fungi translate into unique host-pathogen interactions, many of them yet to be discovered.
白鼻综合征（WNS）在北美的出现导致了大量冬眠蝙蝠的死亡和当地种群的灭绝。为了减轻这种疾病的影响，人们进行了大量的研究来了解其发病机制。白鼻综合征的病原体为假丝酵母（Pseudogymnoascus destructans），是一种嗜冷菌（喜欢寒冷的真菌），属于外囊菌目（Leotiomycetes），主要包含植物病原体，与其他对动物有重大影响的病原体无关。在这篇综述中，我们重新审视了冬眠蝙蝠和假丝酵母的独特生物学特性，并对 WNS 进展的阶段和机制进行了更新分析。冬眠蝙蝠的极端生活史、假丝酵母的嗜冷特性，以及它与其他特征明显的动物感染真菌的进化距离，转化为独特的宿主-病原体相互作用，其中许多仍有待发现。
