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. 2019 Jul 23;10(4):e01397-19.
doi: 10.1128/mBio.01397-19.

On the Emergence of Candida auris: Climate Change, Azoles, Swamps, and Birds

Arturo Casadevall  1 , Dimitrios P Kontoyiannis  2 , Vincent Robert  3
Affiliations

On the Emergence of Candida auris: Climate Change, Azoles, Swamps, and Birds

Arturo Casadevall et al. mBio. .

Abstract

The most enigmatic aspect of the rise of Candida auris as a human pathogen is that it emerged simultaneously on three continents, with each clade being genetically distinct. Although new pathogenic fungal species are described regularly, these are mostly species associated with single cases in individuals who are immunosuppressed. In this study, we used phylogenetic analysis to compare the temperature susceptibility of C. auris with those of its close relatives and to use these results to argue that it may be the first example of a new fungal disease emerging from climate change, with the caveat that many other factors may have contributed.

Keywords: Candida; climate change; fungus.

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Figures

FIG 1
FIG 1
Comparison of thermal tolerance of C. auris and several close relatives. The tree shows that thermal tolerance is not monophyletic to closely related species. Green and red reflect temperature permissiveness and nonpermissiveness, respectively, for growth. Candida spp. with an upper limit of growth at 37°C are not be expected to grow at fever temperatures. Most closely related species manifest lower thermal tolerances than C. auris. The hierarchical tree (unweighted pair group method using average linkages [UPGMA]) is based on pairwise sequence alignments of both internal transcribed spacers and large subunit ribosomal DNA (data obtained and available from the CBS collection at www.westerdijkinstitute.nl).
FIG 2
FIG 2
Proposed scheme for the emergence of C. auris.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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