2. Academic Validation
  3. Human Fungal Pathogens of Mucorales and Entomophthorales

Human Fungal Pathogens of Mucorales and Entomophthorales

  • Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med. 2014 Nov 6;5(4):a019562. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a019562.
Leonel Mendoza 1,  Raquel Vilela 2,  Kerstin Voelz 3,  Ashraf S Ibrahim 4,  Kerstin Voigt 5,  Soo Chan Lee 6
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48424-1031 Biomedical Laboratory Diagnostics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48424-1031.
  • 2 Biomedical Laboratory Diagnostics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48424-1031 Faculty of Pharmacy, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Minas Gerais, CEP33400000 Belo Horizonte, Brazil Belo Horizonte Brazil; Superior Institute of Medicine (ISMD), Minas Gerais, CEP33400000 Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
  • 3 Institute of Microbiology and Infection & School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom The National Institute of Health Research Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom B15 2WB.
  • 4 Division of Infectious Diseases, Harbor-University of California Los Angeles Medical Center, St. John's Cardiovascular Research Center, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California 90502 David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California 90095.
  • 5 Jena Microbial Resource Collection, Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology and University of Jena, Faculty of Biology and Pharmacy, Institute of Microbiology, Neugasse 25, 07743 Jena, Germany.
  • 6 Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710.
PMID: 25377138 DOI: 10.1101/cshperspect.a019562
Abstract

In recent years, we have seen an increase in the number of immunocompromised cohorts as a result of infections and/or medical conditions, which has resulted in an increased incidence of Fungal infections. Although rare, the incidence of infections caused by fungi belonging to basal Fungal lineages is also continuously increasing. Basal Fungal lineages diverged at an early point during the evolution of the Fungal lineage, in which, in a simplified four-phylum Fungal kingdom, Zygomycota and Chytridiomycota belong to the basal fungi, distinguishing them from Ascomycota and Basidiomycota. Currently there are no known human infections caused by fungi in Chytridiomycota; only Zygomycotan fungi are known to infect humans. Hence, infections caused by zygomycetes have been called zygomycosis, and the term "zygomycosis" is often used as a synonym for "mucormycosis." In the four-phylum Fungal kingdom system, Zygomycota is classified mainly based on morphology, including the ability to form coenocytic (aseptated) hyphae and zygospores (sexual spores). In the Zygomycota, there are 10 known orders, two of which, the Mucorales and Entomophthorales, contain species that can infect humans, and the Infection has historically been known as zygomycosis. However, recent multilocus sequence typing analyses (the Fungal tree of life [AFTOL] project) revealed that the Zygomycota forms not a monophyletic clade but instead a polyphyletic clade, whereas Ascomycota and Basidiomycota are monophyletic. Thus, the term "zygomycosis" needed to be further specified, resulting in the terms "mucormycosis" and "entomophthoramycosis." This review covers these two different types of Fungal infections.

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