Candida albicans: fundamental research on an opportunistic human pathogen

Abstract

Invasive Candida infections remain a serious clinical problem. The present availability of several classes of antifungal drugs has impacted positively on the incidence of opportunistic Candida disease, but there remains a pressing need for progress in the development of reliable diagnostic technology. It is also imperative to press on towards the development of new anti-fungal drugs and the creation of new strategies for therapy, including approaches that involve manipulation of host immunity to Candida species. Efforts to devise benefits that can be translated to the medical arena have long been supported by the principle that knowledge acquired from basic research into Candida infections will ultimately inform future practical outcomes. Candida albicans remains the species still most commonly implicated in human infections. Its best-known characteristics are its high prevalence as a human gut commensal, its interchangeable cell morphologies, its ability to switch its colony phenotype at high frequencies, and its genomic diversity, arising from a predisposition towards ‘chromosomal …