Abstract
Fungal diseases affect over 300 million people worldwide each year and cause over 1.6 million deaths. Even with such a high prevalence of fungal infections, relatively few fungal species are pathogens, and invasive fungal infections are rarely diagnosed in healthy subjects. Comparative analyses of mycobiomes reveal that the human organism is colonized by specific fungi soon after birth, and the quantitative and qualitative composition of the mycobiota changes throughout life. In recent years, correlations between the mycobiome structure and health status, also in disease conditions, have been analyzed at the level of fungus-mycobiome-host interactions. The relationship between the colonized area of the human body defined as anatomical location, and fungal species specific for this area, indicates a strong selective pressure that promotes the growth of species specific for a given ecological niche within the organism. Another issue is the validation and standardization of mycobiome analysis methods. In this respect, metagenomic sequencing methods are currently arousing considerable interest. The review presents the current knowledge about the mycobiome in physiological and disease states induced by the dysbiosis of the existing microbiome. The methods and diagnostic challenges in the quantitative and qualitative analysis of mycobiomes are discussed as well.
1. Introduction. 2. Mycobiome in health and disease states. 2.1. Pulmonary mycobiome. 2.2. Intestinal mycobiome. 2.3. Skin mycobiome. 2.4. Mycobiome and neurological disorders. 2.5. Environmental mycobiome. 3. Mycobiome studies in clinical practice. 4. Analysis of mycobiomes: methodologies and challenges. 4.1. Sample processing. 4.2. Amplicon sequencing. 4.3. Metagenomic sequencing. 4.4. Bioinformatics challenges. 5. Summary