Abstract
The impact of fungi on human and plant health is an ever-increasing issue. Recent studies have estimated that human fungal infections result in an excess of one million deaths per year and plant fungal infections resulting in the loss of crop yields worth approximately 200 million per annum. Sexual reproduction in these economically important fungi has evolved in response to the environmental stresses encountered by the pathogens as a method to target DNA damage. Meiosis is integral to this process, through increasing diversity through recombination. Mating and meiosis have been extensively studied in the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, highlighting that these mechanisms have diverged even between apparently closely related species. To further examine this, this review will inspect these mechanisms in emerging important fungal pathogens, such as Candida, Aspergillus, and Cryptococcus. It shows that both sexual and asexual reproduction in these fungi demonstrate a high degree of plasticity.
Highlights
There are approximately 1.5 million identified fungal species, of which a few hundred have been reported or suspected of being the causative agent of disease in humans [1]
In relation to human fungal pathogens, Candida albicans and Aspergillus fumigatus, for many years they were considered to be obligate asexual species. Analysis of their genomes has revealed that they have retained many genes associated with mating and meiosis (Table 1)
In C. albicans, the mating type-lie (MTL) locus includes three genes (Figure 2) that are not present in the S. cerevisiae MAT locus, two of which are essential for growth and play roles in cellular processes not related to reproduction
Summary
There are approximately 1.5 million identified fungal species, of which a few hundred have been reported or suspected of being the causative agent of disease in humans [1]. An emerging theme is that programmes of sexual reproduction exhibit a remarkable degree of plasticity [11] This is true of meiosis, where recent studies have revealed marked differences between non-pathogenic and pathogenic species, and even between those considered to be closely related [5,13,14,41,42,43]. In relation to human fungal pathogens, Candida albicans and Aspergillus fumigatus, for many years they were considered to be obligate asexual species Analysis of their genomes has revealed that they have retained many genes associated with mating and meiosis (Table 1). They contain a mating type (MAT locus), a locus encoding the transcription factor that is the master regulator of sexual reproduction [12,25,43,53]. This poses the question: Why is it that certain species have retained the machinery and genes for a sexual cycle given the fitness costs to the cells?
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