A thermal adaptation landscape related to virulence in Mucor irregularis transcriptional profiles

Abstract

The incidence rate of mucormycosis, one deep fungal disease caused by Mucorales, has rapidly increased over recent years. A multi-centre retrospective observational study on adult non-Aspergillus infections from 2004 to 2012 had reported that Mucorales has become the second most common mould pathogens after Aspergillus. 1 One recent statistical analysis of 851 mucormycosis cases from 2000 to 2017 exhibited that Mucorales spp. accounted for 14% (63/447) of the causative pathogens, in which about 8% (5/63) were Mucor irregularis (M. irregularis). 2 M. irregularis, formerly known as Rhizomucor variabilis, was firstly isolated from a Chinese patient with cutaneous mucormycosis in

Alternative in-vivo models of mucormycosis

“…A recent study investigating the thermal adaptation of Mucor irregularis , once more, demonstrated that strains growing well in high temperature also cause higher mortality rates in infected larvae, which was underlined by higher fungal burden determined by fluorescent staining of homogenized dead larvae ( Zhang et al., 2022 ). Deciphering virulence traits on a genetic level has been delayed in Mucorales due to unavailability of annotated genome sequences and their reluctance to genetic modification.…”