Innate Defense against Fungal Pathogens
- 1Aberdeen Fungal Group, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB25 2ZD, United Kingdom
- 2Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261
- 3Department of Pathology, Case Western Reserve University, School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio 44106
- 4Department of Medicine, Louis Stokes Veterans Affairs Medical Centre, Cleveland, Ohio 44106
- Correspondence: r01rad0{at}abdn.ac.uk
Abstract
Human fungal infections have been on the rise in recent years and proved increasingly difficult to treat as a result of the lack of diagnostics, effective antifungal therapies, and vaccines. Most pathogenic fungi do not cause disease unless there is a disturbance in immune homeostasis, which can be caused by modern medical interventions, disease-induced immunosuppression, and naturally occurring human mutations. The innate immune system is well equipped to recognize and destroy pathogenic fungi through specialized cells expressing a broad range of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs). This review will outline the cells and PRRs required for effective antifungal immunity, with a special focus on the major antifungal cytokine IL-17 and recently characterized antifungal inflammasomes.
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