Cross-Disciplinary Genomics Approaches to Studying Emerging Fungal Infections
File(s)life-10-00315-v2.pdf (960.28 KB)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Emerging fungal pathogens pose a serious, global and growing threat to food supply systems, wild ecosystems, and human health. However, historic chronic underinvestment in their research has resulted in a limited understanding of their epidemiology relative to bacterial and viral pathogens. Therefore, the untargeted nature of genomics and, more widely, -omics approaches is particularly attractive in addressing the threats posed by and illuminating the biology of these pathogens. Typically, research into plant, human and wildlife mycoses have been largely separated, with limited dialogue between disciplines. However, many serious mycoses facing the world today have common traits irrespective of host species, such as plastic genomes; wide host ranges; large population sizes and an ability to persist outside the host. These commonalities mean that -omics approaches that have been productively applied in one sphere and may also provide important insights in others, where these approaches may have historically been underutilised. In this review, we consider the advances made with genomics approaches in the fields of plant pathology, human medicine and wildlife health and the progress made in linking genomes to other -omics datatypes and sets; we identify the current barriers to linking -omics approaches and how these are being underutilised in each field; and we consider how and which -omics methodologies it is most crucial to build capacity for in the near future.
Date Acceptance
2020-11-19
Citation
Life, 10 (12)
ISSN
2075-1729
Publisher
MDPI AG
Journal / Book Title
Life
Volume
10
Issue
12
Copyright Statement
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access
article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
(CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
(CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
License URL
Sponsor
Natural Environment Research Council [2006-2012]
Wellcome Trust
Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Identifier
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/10/12/315
Grant Number
NE/P001165/1
219551/Z/19/Z
NE/S000844/1
MR/R015600/1
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Biology
Microbiology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine - Other Topics
cross-disciplinary
fungal-omics
emerging fungal pathogen
PATHOGEN MYCOSPHAERELLA-GRAMINICOLA
BATRACHOCHYTRIUM-DENDROBATIDIS
CRYPTOCOCCUS-GATTII
VANCOUVER-ISLAND
GEOMYCES-DESTRUCTANS
POPULATION GENOMICS
GENE-EXPRESSION
REAL-TIME
MAGNAPORTHE
RESISTANCE
cross-disciplinary
emerging fungal pathogen
fungal-omics
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2020-11-28