Adaptation strategies: how environmental fungi become fatal?

Most fungi contributing to systemic human infections are environmental pathogens, whose fatal pathogenicity is largely derived from their survival strategies developed to adapt to a plethora of natural stressors. A well-studied example of such pathogens is Cryptococcus neoformans. C. neoformans can cause life-threatening cryptococcosis and meningoencephalitis, which claim more than 600 000 lives annually. Recent findings reveal that the coordinated application of strategies like morphotype transition, cell-cell communication and cellular heterogeneity play critical roles in optimizing fungal survival both inside and outside of the host. The understanding of biological blueprint of these adaptation behaviors will thus help characterize Cryptococcus factors that shape its interaction with the human host, and further contribute to the research of other environmental fungal pathogens.