Abstract
Fungal pathogens can rarely cause disease in immunocompetent individuals. However, commensal and normally non-pathogenic environmental fungi can cause life threatening infections in immunocompromised individuals. Over the last few decades, there has been a huge increase in the incidence of invasive opportunistic fungal infections along with a worrying increase in antifungal drug resistance. As a consequence, research focused on understanding the molecular and cellular basis of antifungal immunity has expanded tremendously in the last few years. This review will provide an overview of the most exciting recent advances in innate antifungal immunity, discoveries that are helping to pave the way for the development of new strategies that are desperately needed to combat these devastating diseases.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 373-397 |
Number of pages | 24 |
Journal | Journal of Innate Immunity |
Volume | 10 |
Early online date | 16 May 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2018 |
Bibliographical note
AcknowledgementsWe apologize to our many colleagues whose valuable contributions we were not able to cite due to space constrains.
Conflict of interest
Funding was provided by the Wellcome Trust (102705, 097377) and the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology and the University of Aberdeen (MR/N006364/1). F. Salazar holds a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT), Chile. There are not additional conflict of interest to declare.