Prof. Xu Jianping, a review article by Professor Xu from McMaster University in Canada, "Assessing global fungal threats to humans" was officially launched on mLife on September 22, 2022. This paper evaluates the main hazards of fungi to humans, , and the main drivers of various hazards. At the same time, the latest progress and potential research areas for controlling fungal hazards are discussed to promote their quantitative evaluation and prediction, and inspire people to better study and predict the threats of all microorganisms to humans.
Background introduction
In daily life, people will be exposed to millions of fungal spores or mycelium through breathing, eating or skin contact. Of the approximately 140,000 known fungi on Earth, 10% of species directly or indirectly threaten human health. Although models have been developed for analyzing individual fungal threats and threat management, there is not enough research to integrate and accurately quantify the drivers of all fungal threats, ultimately predicting and developing their control models.
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The main fungal threats include mushroom poisoning, fungal infection, crop infection, food contamination by mycotoxin , and human fungal diseases. Factors such as population growth patterns, crop distribution, anthropogenic activities, pathogen transmission, global climate change and/or the application of antifungal drugs and agricultural fungicides affect various fungal threats. While reviewing and discussing the diversity of each fungal threat factor , this review article provides an extremely simplified approximate simulation method to quantify the threats of various fungi to humans; at the same time proposes effective measures to reduce the occurrence of fungal threats.
(1) The most effective way to reduce mushroom poisoning is to provide targeted education to mushroom collectors and consumers in areas with concentrated mushroom poisoning cases; (2) Establish and improve the fungal allergen database for rapid and effective allergen diagnosis and design future targeted desensitization programs, which can reduce the number of susceptible host populations; (3) Long-term monitoring of host and pathogen distribution, disease prevalence and severity of crop farms are key parameters for analyzing crop losses caused by fungal infections. The development of fungicides and the new application strategies of existing fungicides will help reduce the huge losses caused by fungal infection to crops; (4) As people deepen their understanding of mycotoxin monitoring and food processing, transportation and storage technologies, a variety of new mycotoxin detection technologies have been developed, providing effective measures for the prevention and control of food mycotoxin pollution; (5) Fast and effective diagnostic tools, effective and targeted use of new antifungal agents, vaccine development and scientific control of drug resistance will better prevent and treat human fungal infection and transmission.
Figure 1 Several representative fungi that pose a threat to humans
(A), (D) strand sporodils; (B), (C) Amanita ; (E) Candida auricus ; (F) Aspergillus fumigatum
Summary Outlook
This article determines the key variables that affect the occurrence of fungal threats through retrospective review, providing key information for minimizing fungal threats. But most current studies on fungal threats are descriptive, with only limited quantitative data generating predictions and designing response strategies. The factors that are known or currently unknown but potentially important to drive all fungal threats require medium- and long-term monitoring and supervision, which helps us develop an overall strategy to manage and control future fungal threats.
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https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/mlf2.12036
Cited this paper: Xu J. Assessing global fungal threats to humans. mLife. 2022.
https://doi.org/10.1002/mlf2.12036
