Fungi that have been flagged as “important” concern by the World Health Organization may have a secret weapon. The virus is hidden inside.
Now, new research suggests that targeting the virus could provide new strategies to treat people with these dangerous fungal infections.
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A. fumigatus can infect spores suckers. This can cause short- or long-term pulmonary infections or “invasive” diseases that spread beyond the lungs. Many people breathe Aspergillus spores every day, but usually only immunocompromised patients get sick, author Marina Campos Rocha, a postdoctoral researcher at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, told Live Science. People with lung disease are also vulnerable.
Fungi are responsible for approximately 2.1 million cases of invasive aspergillosis and 1.8 million cases of chronic pulmonary infections occurring worldwide each year, out of 6.55 million invasive fungal infections. Invasive infections have mortality rates ranging from 30% to 80% worldwide.
In a new study published on August 14th in the journal Nature Microbiology, scientists studied mice infected with A. fumigatus. This was infected with the AFUPMV-1M virus, which itself is called the “Russian Doll” scenario. The fungus used were isolated from the lungs of patients who originally died of aspergillosis.
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The researchers showed that rodent survival improved when administered mouse antiviral drugs, lower lung fungal loads showed reduced viral levels compared to mice that were not given the drug.
In other words, targeting viruses alone allowed researchers to reduce the burden of fungal infections in mice, Rocha said. This appears to oppose findings from previous research published in 2020. This has discovered the opposite effect of targeting viruses and accidentally exacerbating fungal infections. (Rocha noted that there could be several reasons for the diverse results, including the fact that each research team uses a different approach to injure the virus by using a different approach.)
Norman Van Lisin, a researcher at the Manchester Fungal Infectious Diseases Group, said the findings revealed by Rosha and her colleagues were completely novel. “This is a major step towards understanding the virulence capabilities of this fungus and could broaden these findings in other human pathogens,” Van Lisin, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email.
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Rocha and her team found that antiviral-exposed fungi had reduced effectiveness and reduced melanin production. In many disease-causing fungi, melanin increases toxicity and the ability to survive in harsh environments.
The virus itself requires specific receptors and proteins to bind and is not present in mammals, so it cannot harm mice or humans. The virus that infects each fungus is usually endemic to one fungal species, she added.
“As in this case, it can only infect Aspergillus fumigatas,” Rosha said. “You can’t infect other fungi.”
Researchers believe that one way viruses help fungi thrive is by controlling some of the processes that process RNA, the genetic molecules involved in protein production. This virus somehow improves the stress response and protein synthesis of fungi, enhancing survival in hostile states. They also saw that human immune cells found it difficult to kill strains infected with fungal viruses compared to uninfected strains.
If the antiviral agents used to target AFUPMV-1M in mice work effectively in humans, we believe future treatments may use drugs to adequately weaken the bacteria to clear it from the body.
Rocha suspects that other fungal pathogens that infect people can also be infected with similar viruses that increase resilience. Together with her colleagues, she is investigating the infection mechanisms involved in infected and uninfected fungi.
“Our article represents only the first step in this research,” she told Live Science. “Our broader goal is to provide a more comprehensive explanation of how processes unfold at the molecular level.”
This article is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide medical advice.
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