Virulence phenotypes result from interactions between pathogen ploidy and genetic background.

ABSTRACT: Studying fungal virulence is often challenging and frequently depends on many contexts, including host immune status and pathogen genetic background. However, the role of ploidy has often been overlooked when studying virulence in eukaryotic pathogens. Since fungal pathogens, including the human opportunistic pathogen Candida albicans, can display extensive ploidy variation, assessing how ploidy impacts virulence has important clinical relevance. As an opportunistic pathogen, C. albicans causes nonlethal, superficial infections in healthy individuals, but life-threatening bloodstream infections in individuals with compromised immune function. Here, we determined how both ploidy and genetic background of C. albicans impacts virulence phenotypes in healthy and immunocomp

SUBMITTER: Feistel DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7487253 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature