CDFD research finds how fungal pathogen which kills 2.5 million people every year evades host immune cells

Researchers at BRIC-Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) on Thursday (October 3, 2024) have announced that they had discovered how fungal pathogen ‘Candida glabrata’, which resides in the mouth, gut and genitourinary tract of healthy humans, evade killing by host immune cells.

Globally, more than 2.5 million people are said to be dying of the invasive fungal infections every year. This particular pathogen causes fatal infections of the bloodstream and internal organs in patients with weak immune system.

Unlike other major fungal pathogens, C. glabrata circumvents the body’s immune system. How it manages to do it is what research scholar Sandip Patra in the group of scientist Rupinder Kaur found out examining the cell interactions.

He found that patients with mutations in a particular ‘Arpc1B gene’ suffer from recurrent microbial invasive infections and these findings, newly published in the journal EMBO Reports, pave a path forward for the researchers to explore a novel therapeutic for infectious diseases. This study was funded by the DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance, said a press release.