Dynamic Fungal Cell Wall Architecture in Stress Adaptation and Immune Evasion

Overview

Journal Trends Microbiol

Date 2018 Feb 18

PMID 29452950

Citations 86

Authors

Alex Hopke

Alistair J P Brown

Rebecca A Hall

Robert T Wheeler

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Deadly infections from opportunistic fungi have risen in frequency, largely because of the at-risk immunocompromised population created by advances in modern medicine and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This review focuses on dynamics of the fungal polysaccharide cell wall, which plays an outsized role in fungal pathogenesis and therapy because it acts as both an environmental barrier and as the major interface with the host immune system. Human fungal pathogens use architectural strategies to mask epitopes from the host and prevent immune surveillance, and recent work elucidates how biotic and abiotic stresses present during infection can either block or enhance masking. The signaling components implicated in regulating fungal immune recognition can teach us how cell wall dynamics are controlled, and represent potential targets for interventions designed to boost or dampen immunity.

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