Max Perutz Labs Vienna, Vienna Biocenter Campus (VBC), Vienna, Austria.
Center for Medical Biochemistry, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
PLoS Pathog. 2024 Oct 15;20(10):e1012559. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1012559. eCollection 2024 Oct.
Intraspecies variations that affect pathogenicity and antifungal resistance traits pose a serious obstacle to efficient therapy of Candida auris infections. Recent reports indicate that mutations determine drug susceptibility and virulence. However, mutations alone cannot fully explain a bewildering variety of phenotypes in clinical isolates from known C. auris clades, suggesting an unprecedented complexity underlying virulence traits and antifungal resistance. Hence, we wish to discuss how phenotypic plasticity promotes morphogenetic switching and how that contributes to intraspecies variations in the human fungal pathogen C. auris. Further, we will also discuss how intraspecies variations and morphogenetic events can impact the progress in molecular mycology research that aims to find better treatments for C. auris infections. Finally, we will present our opinion as to the most relevant questions to be addressed when trying to better understand the pathophysiology of C. auris.
种内变异会影响致病性和抗真菌耐药性特征,这对有效治疗耳念珠菌感染构成严重障碍。最近的报告表明,突变决定了药物敏感性和毒力。然而,突变本身并不能完全解释从已知的耳念珠菌谱系的临床分离株中观察到的令人困惑的各种表型,这表明在毒力特征和抗真菌耐药性方面存在前所未有的复杂性。因此,我们希望讨论表型可塑性如何促进形态发生转换,以及这种转换如何导致人类真菌病原体耳念珠菌的种内变异。此外,我们还将讨论种内变异和形态发生事件如何影响旨在寻找更好的耳念珠菌感染治疗方法的分子真菌学研究的进展。最后,我们将就试图更好地理解耳念珠菌的病理生理学时需要解决的最相关问题提出我们的看法。