title: Hypoxia and fungal pathogenesis: to air or not to air?
abstract: Over the last 3 decades, the frequency of life-threatening human fungal infections has increased as advances in medical therapies, solid-organ and hematopoietic stem cell transplantations, an increasing geriatric population, and HIV infections have resulted in significant rises in susceptible patient populations. Although significant advances have been made in understanding how fungi cause disease, the dynamic microenvironments encountered by fungi during infection and the mechanisms by which they adapt to these microenvironments are not fully understood. As inhibiting and preventing in vivo fungal growth are main goals of antifungal therapies, understanding in vivo fungal metabolism in these host microenvironments is critical for the improvement of existing therapies or the design of new approaches. In this minireview, we focus on the emerging appreciation that pathogenic fungi like Candida albicans, Cryptococcus neoformans, and Aspergillus fumigatus are exposed to oxygen-limited or hypoxic microenvironments during fungal pathogenesis. The implications of these in vivo hypoxic microenvironments for fungal metabolism and pathogenesis are discussed with an aim toward understanding the potential impact of hypoxia on invasive fungal infection outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, USA.
authors.forename: Nora
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Grahl
authors.forename: Kelly M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Shepardson
authors.forename: Dawoon
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.forename: Robert A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Cramer
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000388:Air; D000693:Anaerobiosis; D000818:Animals; D001232:Aspergillus fumigatus / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D002176:Candida albicans / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D060833:Cellular Microenvironment; D003455:Cryptococcus neoformans / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D005800:Genes, Fungal; D054884:Host-Pathogen Interactions; D006801:Humans; D009181:Mycoses / Q000378:metabolism / Q000382:microbiology; D010100:Oxygen / Q000378:metabolism*; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen