Fungal stealth technology

Abstract

Medically important fungi range from commensal organisms that cause opportunistic infections to primary fungal pathogens that can cause disease in immunocompetent hosts. Host phagocyte-expressed pattern-recognition receptors represent one obstacle to infection, and the extent to which fungal cells can evade detection by host receptors helps shape their pathogenic potential. This review highlights recently defined mechanisms employed by successful fungal pathogens to conceal their immunostimulatory molecular signatures from leukocyte receptors or to disrupt host response signals. Continued improvements in our understanding of these fungal stealth mechanisms should provide new options for future therapeutics to expose these fungal pathogens and limit their virulence capacity.