Climate change, animals, and Candida auris: insights into the ecological niche of a new species from a one health approach.

Autores de IIS La Fe

• Víctor García Bustos

  Autor

• Marta Dafne Cabañero Navalón

  Autor

• Miguel Salavert Lletí

  Autor

• 

  María Ángeles Tormo Mas

  Autor

• Javier Pemán García

  Autor

Participantes ajenos a IIS La Fe

• Ruiz-Gaitan, Alba

Grupos

• Infección Grave

Abstract

BACKGROUND: One of the most puzzling traits of Candida auris is the recent simultaneous and independent emergence of five genetically distinct clades on three continents. Global warming has been proposed as a contributing factor for this emergence due to C. auris high thermotolerance compared to phylogenetically close Candida species. This hypothesis postulates that climate change induced an environmental ancestor to become pathogenic through thermal adaptation and was then globally disseminated by an intermediate host. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this review is to compile the current knowledge on the emergence and ecological environmental niches of C. auris, and highlight the potential role of animals in transmission. SOURCES: A literature search was conducted using PubMed, MEDLINE, Google Scholar, and Web of Science from May 2022 to January 2023. CONTENT: We discuss the up-to-date data on the ecological niches of this fungus and its mechanisms of emergence, transmission cycle in nature, and worldwide dissemination. We highlight the possibility of an originally intermediate host possibly related to marine or freshwater ecosystems on the basis of recent molecular and microbiological evidence from a One Health perspective. The consequences of harmful human impacts on the environment in the raise of new fungal pathogenic species such as C. auris are also analysed and compared to other animal precedents. IMPLICATIONS: The present knowledge can prompt the generation of new evidence on the ecological reservoirs of C. auris and its original mechanisms of environmental or interspecies transmission. Further research on the highlighted gaps will help to understand the importance of the relationships between human, animal, and ecosystem health, as factors involved in the raise and spread of emerging fungal pathogenic species.

Copyright © 2023 European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords

• Candida auris; Climate change; Emerging fungal diseases; Global warming; Zoonosis