Threats Posed by the Fungal Kingdom to Humans, Wildlife, and Agriculture
Matthew C. Fisher,
Sarah J. Gurr,
Christina A. Cuomo,
David S. Blehert,
Hailing Jin,
Eva H. Stukenbrock,
Jason E. Stajich,
Regine Kahmann,
Charles Boone,
David W. Denning,
Neil A. R. Gow,
Bruce S. Klein,
James W. Kronstad,
Donald C. Sheppard,
John W. Taylor,
Gerard D. Wright,
Joseph Heitman,
Arturo Casadevall,
Leah E. Cowen
Affiliations
Matthew C. Fisher
MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom
Sarah J. Gurr
Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom
Christina A. Cuomo
Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
David S. Blehert
U.S. Geological Survey, National Wildlife Health Center, Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Hailing Jin
Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology, Center for Plant Cell Biology, Institute for Integrative Genome Biology, University of California—Riverside, Riverside, California, USA
Eva H. Stukenbrock
Max Planck Fellow Group Environmental Genomics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön, Germany
Jason E. Stajich
Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology, Center for Plant Cell Biology, Institute for Integrative Genome Biology, University of California—Riverside, Riverside, California, USA
Regine Kahmann
Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Department of Organismic Interactions, Marburg, Germany
Charles Boone
Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
David W. Denning
The National Aspergillosis Centre, Wythenshawe Hospital, The University of Manchester, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, Manchester, United Kingdom
Neil A. R. Gow
Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom
Bruce S. Klein
Department of Pediatrics, Department of Internal Medicine, and Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA
James W. Kronstad
Michael Smith Laboratories, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Donald C. Sheppard
McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunology, Departments of Medicine, Microbiology & Immunology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
John W. Taylor
University of California—Berkeley, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, Berkeley, California, USA
Gerard D. Wright
M.G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Joseph Heitman
Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Medicine, and Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, USA
Arturo Casadevall
Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Leah E. Cowen
Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
ABSTRACT The fungal kingdom includes at least 6 million eukaryotic species and is remarkable with respect to its profound impact on global health, biodiversity, ecology, agriculture, manufacturing, and biomedical research. Approximately 625 fungal species have been reported to infect vertebrates, 200 of which can be human associated, either as commensals and members of our microbiome or as pathogens that cause infectious diseases. These organisms pose a growing threat to human health with the global increase in the incidence of invasive fungal infections, prevalence of fungal allergy, and the evolution of fungal pathogens resistant to some or all current classes of antifungals. More broadly, there has been an unprecedented and worldwide emergence of fungal pathogens affecting animal and plant biodiversity. Approximately 8,000 species of fungi and Oomycetes are associated with plant disease. Indeed, across agriculture, such fungal diseases of plants include new devastating epidemics of trees and jeopardize food security worldwide by causing epidemics in staple and commodity crops that feed billions. Further, ingestion of mycotoxins contributes to ill health and causes cancer. Coordinated international research efforts, enhanced technology translation, and greater policy outreach by scientists are needed to more fully understand the biology and drivers that underlie the emergence of fungal diseases and to mitigate against their impacts. Here, we focus on poignant examples of emerging fungal threats in each of three areas: human health, wildlife biodiversity, and food security.
