Filamentation in Candida auris, an emerging fungal pathogen of humans: passage through the mammalian body induces a heritable phenotypic switch.

ABSTRACT: Morphological plasticity has historically been an indicator of increased virulence among fungal pathogens, allowing rapid adaptation to changing environments. Candida auris has been identified as an emerging multidrug-resistant human pathogen of global importance. Since the discovery of this species, it has been thought that C. auris is incapable of filamentous growth. Here, we report the discovery of filamentation and three distinct cell types in C. auris: typical yeast, filamentation-competent (FC) yeast, and filamentous cells. These cell types form a novel phenotypic switching system that contains a heritable (typical yeast-filament) and a nonheritable (FC-filament) switch. Intriguingly, the heritable switch between the typical yeast and the FC/filamentous phenotype is triggered by pass

SUBMITTER: Yue H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6258701 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature