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High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

nature.com

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Re: High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

#21

Post by aziaziazi »

romaaeterna wrote: post #20
nabla9 wrote: post #8

//Thermotolerance Adaptation// The main reason why fungal infections typically kill only elderly and sick humans (mammals) is body temperature. Most fungi cannot survive at human body temperature (~37°C). Rising global temperatures are driving fungi to adapt by becoming more thermotolerant, enabling them to survive and replicate at human body temperatures. Effects of climate change on fungal infections https://journa…

"Rising global temperatures are driving fungi to adapt by becoming more thermotolerant..." Your link only mentions Candida auris. I do not find it compelling to blame this on recent global warming for two reasons: 1) Regional and seasonal temperature variation is much greater than global variation and therefore the first place to look for temperature-specific adaptation, 2) The presence of an adaptation to the human…

> appearance of Candida auris is related to the use of agricultural antifungals in East Asian agricultural production

Can you elaborate on share documents on this? I’m wondering why east asia is different in anti fungal usage.

Re: High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

#22

Post by romaaeterna »

aziaziazi wrote: post #21
romaaeterna wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Rising global temperatures are driving fungi to adapt by becoming more thermotolerant..." Your link only mentions Candida auris. I do not find it compelling to blame this on recent global warming for two reasons: 1) Regional and seasonal temperature variation is much greater than global variation and therefore the first place to look for temperature-specific adaptation, 2) The presence of an adaptation to the human…

> appearance of Candida auris is related to the use of agricultural antifungals in East Asian agricultural production Can you elaborate on share documents on this? I’m wondering why east asia is different in anti fungal usage.

"Can you elaborate on share documents on this?"

https://archive.is/uTAaW

"I’m wondering why east asia is different in anti fungal usage."

It is a logical error to assume that it has to be substantially different. East Asia is simply the region that Candida auris originates from (ie., evolved in). It was first noticed in Tokyo and South Korea, and eventually India a few years later.

EDIT:

Actually, looks like there's some evidence that multiple evolutionarily-separate unrelated strains attained drug resistance one after another. Presumably the same antifungal agricultural product would have been in widespread use if this is the cause. If you look at the PLOS article linked in the NYT article in my link, they give an example of this for Aspergillus fumigatus strains.

[1] https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j...

Re: High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

#23

Post by mrob »

mbil wrote: post #19
metalman wrote: post #17

ummmm, hmmmmmmm, It's high time we realised that we are the largest single niche, and animal biomass, that possibly, has ever existed, and it is a law of biology, that each niche will be filled. This means that any peicemeal approach is going to lagg, and uncontrollable epidemics become more and more likely. Confounding factors are that our diets and lifestyles are converging into a more homegenous whole, and all in…

Humans aren’t the largest biomass

Relevant paper: The biomass distribution on Earth

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1711842115

I saw a good 3D visualization of this data using a customized version of Minecraft:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXDZ2LTTKUE&t=505s

Re: High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

#24

Post by pmags »

romaaeterna wrote: post #20
nabla9 wrote: post #8

//Thermotolerance Adaptation// The main reason why fungal infections typically kill only elderly and sick humans (mammals) is body temperature. Most fungi cannot survive at human body temperature (~37°C). Rising global temperatures are driving fungi to adapt by becoming more thermotolerant, enabling them to survive and replicate at human body temperatures. Effects of climate change on fungal infections https://journa…

"Rising global temperatures are driving fungi to adapt by becoming more thermotolerant..." Your link only mentions Candida auris. I do not find it compelling to blame this on recent global warming for two reasons: 1) Regional and seasonal temperature variation is much greater than global variation and therefore the first place to look for temperature-specific adaptation, 2) The presence of an adaptation to the human…

I too think that we don't yet have convincing evidence that recent changes in global temperature have driven thermal tolerance. However, there are some interesting aspect of C. auris that are worth pointing out:

• C. auris does have unusual thermotolerance -- it grows up to 42C which is unusual compared to other Candida species.

• C. auris does not appear to be a typical commensal of mammals, or other high body temp animals, and hence it's thermal tolerance is likely not due to selection for this aspect of the host niche

Some more info on C. auris and hypotheses about origins here:

• Sharma C, Kadosh D. Perspective on the origin, resistance, and spread of the emerging human fungal pathogen Candida auris. PLoS Pathog. 2023 Mar 23;19(3):e1011190. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1011190. PMID: 36952448; PMCID: PMC10035752.

But I agree

Re: High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

#26

Post by Loughla »

kinow wrote: post #3
pmags wrote: post #2

From the editorial in Nature: Around 3.8 million people die each year of infections caused by C. auris and other fungi. Annual deaths caused by fungal infections have nearly doubled in the past decade. Pathogenic fungi pose unique challenges, and overcoming them will require innovative approaches to both science and policy. Yet, despite the growing global threat posed by drug-resistant fungi, such infections rarely l…

Looks like this could affect how we grow crops, maybe pish for more different techniques to avoid pesticides, and also lead to new life habits. I hope WHO or some group of researchers somewhere will start studying how to tackle these fungi infections. Given the current situation of global conflicts, political situation, and economy around the world, if these infections become more widespread and resistent if could be…

Pesticides have nothing to do with this. Staple crops in the United States essentially do not use fungicides anymore. GM crops have negated that need.

Edit: what did I say that was incorrect?

Re: High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

#27

Post by sarchertech »

_heimdall wrote: post #14
jakobnissen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's right. * There is limited evidence that farming use of antibiotics is what drives resistance in clinical cases. That is - we use enormous amounts of antibiotics in farming, but the resistance it creates doesn't really seem to move into the hospitals. * There is no reason to believe we've hit a wall and can't invent more antibiotics in the future. Historically we haven't focused much on antibiotic…

> There is no reason to believe we've hit a wall and can't invent more antibiotics in the future That just kicks the can down the road though. Assuming that the use of any antibiotic will eventually lead to a predominance of resistance, we would have to continue to invent new, effective antibiotics indefinitely. > For example, some countries crazily overprescribe antibiotics, or prescribe broad spectrum ones I don't…

We don’t have to keep creating new antibiotics indefinitely. There’s always some cost to resistance. Once a drug is no longer present in an environment, non-resistant strains tend to outcompete resistant ones. That is if you just stop using an antibiotic, bacteria will tend to lose resistance to it.

Theoretically once you have enough antibiotics that we can retire drugs with heavy resistance and keep cycling them, you won’t need to keep creating new antibiotics.

Re: High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

#28

Post by maxerickson »

mbil wrote: post #19
metalman wrote: post #17

ummmm, hmmmmmmm, It's high time we realised that we are the largest single niche, and animal biomass, that possibly, has ever existed, and it is a law of biology, that each niche will be filled. This means that any peicemeal approach is going to lagg, and uncontrollable epidemics become more and more likely. Confounding factors are that our diets and lifestyles are converging into a more homegenous whole, and all in…

Humans aren’t the largest biomass

Yeah, that sounded wrong to me. We punch pretty high for a single species though:

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/08/total-biomass-weight...

Re: High time to tackle drug-resistant fungal infections

#29

Post by alganet »

Only fungal? What about funguy?

What about letting a more innofensive variant spread? You know, not cleaning stuff just because it is slightly moldy (doesn't mean eating it!).

It would be hilarious if cleaning is actually what selects the strongest bacteria and funghi to thrive. I mean tragic, not hilarious.

But I'm no biologist. I have only mediocre high school understanding of such things.

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