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Environmental Candida auris and the Global Warming Emergence Hypothesis.

Arturo CasadevallDimitrios P KontoyiannisVincent Robert
Published in: mBio (2021)
Global warming was proposed to be a contributing cause for the nearly simultaneous emergence of different clades of Candida auris as a nosocomial pathogen in different continents. The global warming emergence hypothesis posits that C. auris existed in the environment prior to its clinical recognition and became pathogenic for humans because of thermal adaptation in response to climate change. The isolation of C. auris from two sites in the remote Andaman Islands establishes it as an environmental organism, a necessary condition for the hypothesis. The observation that one environmental isolate grew slower at mammalian temperatures than clinical strains is consistent with the notion that their ancestor recently adapted to higher temperatures. The knowledge that C. auris can be recovered from the environment should prompt additional searches to define its ecological niches, and the analysis of future environmental isolates will provide evidence for validating or refuting the global warming emergence hypothesis.
Keyphrases
  • human health
  • climate change
  • candida albicans
  • life cycle
  • risk assessment
  • healthcare
  • escherichia coli
  • biofilm formation
  • pseudomonas aeruginosa
  • cystic fibrosis
  • drug resistant