The yeast–human coevolution: Fungal transition from passengers, colonizers, and invaders

Abstract

Fungi are the cause of more than a billion infections in humans every year, although their interactions with the host are still neglected compared to bacteria. Major systemic fungal infections are very unusual in the healthy population, due to the long history of coevolution with the human host. Humans are routinely exposed to environmental fungi and can host a commensal mycobiota, which is increasingly considered as a key player in health and disease. Here, we review the current knowledge on host‐fungi coevolution and the factors that regulate their interaction. On one hand, fungi have learned to survive and inhabit the host organisms as a natural ecosystem, on the other hand, the host immune system finely tunes the response toward fungi. In turn, recognition of fungi as commensals or pathogens regulates the host immune balance in health and disease. In the human gut ecosystem, yeasts provide a fingerprint of the transient microbiota. Their status as passengers or colonizers is related to the integrity of the gut barrier and the risk of multiple disorders. Thus, the study of this less known component of the microbiota could unravel the rules of the transition from passengers to colonizers and invaders, as well as their dependence on the innate component of the host's immune response.This article is categorized under: Infectious Diseases > Environmental Factors Immune System Diseases > Environmental Factors Infectious Diseases > Molecular and Cellular Physiology

Exploring the Influence of Urbanization on Gut Mycobiota through Dietary Changes in Burkina Faso

“…This fungal exposure can occur through environmental contamination, direct food assimilation, or the modi cation of intestinal communities following a dietary shift [30]. Despite current knowledge, the impact of the environment in shaping the fungal mycobiota remains largely unexplored [31,32]. This study aims to describe the impact of transitioning from rural to urban environments on the intestinal mycobiota of African populations living in areas at different levels of urbanization (rural, semi-urbanized, and urban areas) in Burkina Faso [33].…”