Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2024 Mar 25:15:1374438.
doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1374438. eCollection 2024.

Uncovering the diversity of pathogenic invaders: insights into protozoa, fungi, and worm infections

Richa Shukla  1 , Jyoti Soni  1   2 , Ashish Kumar  1 , Rajesh Pandey  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Uncovering the diversity of pathogenic invaders: insights into protozoa, fungi, and worm infections

Richa Shukla et al. Front Microbiol. .

Abstract

Post COVID-19, there has been renewed interest in understanding the pathogens challenging the human health and evaluate our preparedness towards dealing with health challenges in future. In this endeavour, it is not only the bacteria and the viruses, but a greater community of pathogens. Such pathogenic microorganisms, include protozoa, fungi and worms, which establish a distinct variety of disease-causing agents with the capability to impact the host's well-being as well as the equity of ecosystem. This review summarises the peculiar characteristics and pathogenic mechanisms utilized by these disease-causing organisms. It features their role in causing infection in the concerned host and emphasizes the need for further research. Understanding the layers of pathogenesis encompassing the concerned infectious microbes will help expand targeted inferences with relation to the cause of the infection. This would strengthen and augment benefit to the host's health along with the maintenance of ecosystem network, exhibiting host-pathogen interaction cycle. This would be key to discover the layers underlying differential disease severities in response to similar/same pathogen infection.

Keywords: fungi; host-pathogen interaction; immune evasion; pathogens; protozoa; worms.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Depicts the various immune evasion strategies employed by the pathogenic protozoa inside the human host.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Interprets the various associated outcomes with response to Trichomonas vaginalis infection.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Describes the types of antifungal agents acting on different sections of the cell causing prevention of fungal infection.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Shows Caenorhabditis elegans as a model system for understanding human associated maladies.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Akoolo L., Rocha S. C., Parveen N. (2022). Protozoan co-infections and parasite influence on the efficacy of vaccines against bacterial and viral pathogens. Front. Microbiol. 13:1020029. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.1020029, PMID: - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ali U., Sajid N., Khalid A., Riaz L., Rabbani M. M., Syed J. H., et al. . (2015). A review on vermicomposting of organic wastes. Environ. Prog. Sustain. Energy 34, 1050–1062. doi: 10.1002/ep.12100 - DOI
    1. Arbeitskreis Blut, Untergruppe «Bewertung Blutassoziierter Krankheitserreger» (2009). Malaria. Transfus. Med. Hemother. 36, 48–60. doi: 10.1159/000197327, PMID: - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Autino B., Corbett Y., Castelli F., Taramelli D. (2012). Pathogenesis of malaria in tissues and blood. Mediterr. J. Hematol. Infect. Dis. 4:e2012061. doi: 10.4084/MJHID.2012.061, PMID: - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Avery R. K., Michaels M. G., AST Infectious Diseases Community of Practice (2019). Strategies for safe living following solid organ transplantation-guidelines from the American Society of Transplantation infectious diseases Community of Practice. Clin. Transpl. 33:e13519. doi: 10.1111/ctr.13519, PMID: - DOI - PubMed

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Grant number – INV-033578.

LinkOut - more resources