Until now, almost all studies suggested that the formation of hyphae is one of the most important virulence factors of the yeast Candida albicans. Ilse Jacobsen from Leibniz-HKI and her team have now shown for the first time that a mutant form of the fungus that does not form hyphae can also cause lethal systemic infections. The researchers report their findings in Nature Communications.

Original publication:

Dunker C, Polke M, Schulze-Richter B, Schubert K, Rudolphi S, Greßler AE, Pawlik T, Prada Salcedo JP, Niemiec MJ, Slesiona-Künzel S, Swidergall M, Martin R, Dandekar T, Jacobsen ID (2021) Rapid proliferation due to better metabolic adaptation results in full virulence of a filament-deficient Candida albicans strain. Nature Communications doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24095-8