Morphogenesis And Pathogenicity In Fungi (topics In Current Genetics)
by José Pérez Martín /
2012 / English / PDF
4.3 MB Download
Infectious fungal diseases continue to take their toll in terms
of human suffering and enormous economic losses. Invasive
infections by opportunistic fungal pathogens are a major cause of
morbidity and mortality in immuno-compromised individuals. At the
same time, plant pathogenic fungi have devastating effects on
crop production and human health. New strategies for antifungal
control are required to meet the challenges posed by these
agents, and such approaches can only be developed through the
identification of novel biochemical and molecular targets.
However, in contrast to bacterial pathogens, fungi display a
wealth of “lifestyles” and modes of infection. This diversity
makes it extremely difficult to identify individual,
evolutionarily conserved virulence determinants and represents a
major stumbling block in the search for common antifungal
targets. In order to activate the infection programme, all fungal
pathogens must undergo appropriate developmental transitions that
involve cellular differentiation and the introduction of a new
morphogenetic programme. How growth, cell cycle progression and
morphogenesis are co-ordinately regulated during development has
been an active area of research in fungal model systems such as
budding and fission yeast. By contrast, we have only limited
knowledge of how these developmental processes shape fungal
pathogenicity, or of the role of the cell cycle and morphogenesis
regulators as true virulence factors. This book combines
state-of-the-art expertise from diverse pathogen model systems to
update our current understanding of the regulation of fungal
morphogenesis as a key determinant of pathogenicity in fungi.
Infectious fungal diseases continue to take their toll in terms
of human suffering and enormous economic losses. Invasive
infections by opportunistic fungal pathogens are a major cause of
morbidity and mortality in immuno-compromised individuals. At the
same time, plant pathogenic fungi have devastating effects on
crop production and human health. New strategies for antifungal
control are required to meet the challenges posed by these
agents, and such approaches can only be developed through the
identification of novel biochemical and molecular targets.
However, in contrast to bacterial pathogens, fungi display a
wealth of “lifestyles” and modes of infection. This diversity
makes it extremely difficult to identify individual,
evolutionarily conserved virulence determinants and represents a
major stumbling block in the search for common antifungal
targets. In order to activate the infection programme, all fungal
pathogens must undergo appropriate developmental transitions that
involve cellular differentiation and the introduction of a new
morphogenetic programme. How growth, cell cycle progression and
morphogenesis are co-ordinately regulated during development has
been an active area of research in fungal model systems such as
budding and fission yeast. By contrast, we have only limited
knowledge of how these developmental processes shape fungal
pathogenicity, or of the role of the cell cycle and morphogenesis
regulators as true virulence factors. This book combines
state-of-the-art expertise from diverse pathogen model systems to
update our current understanding of the regulation of fungal
morphogenesis as a key determinant of pathogenicity in fungi.