A Deadly Fungus Has Been Having Sneaky Sex, And It Could Bode Ill For Humans

A yeast emerged from the ear canal of a woman. This yeast is a health menace, having spread around the world and become resistant to many drugs. A new study shows it reproduces in surprising ways.

C. auris is not a helpful baker or yeast. It has a poor track record of getting into hospitals and infecting people with weakened immune systems. Without an effective antifungal, patients can die if it enters the bloodstream.

Normally yeast splits into daughter cells. Evidence of sexual reproduction has been found in C. auris. There could be more drug resistant strains of the fungus.

In their new paper, the team states that there is no evidence for sexual reproduction in C. auris.

There was limited but unambiguous evidence of recombination in the total sample.

The reshuffling of genetic information can't be done in asexual reproduction, meaning that at some point in the past there had to be some hanky panchy on the cards.

The idea that C. auris occasionally sexually reproduces is not as crazy as it seems. Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is the yeast used in baking, winemaking, and brewing, will sometimes mate with each other, particularly when undergoing stress.

The team wasn't able to catch C. auris in the act, but they were able to analyze the genes. They were able to see the genetic differences between the five clades.

Most of the recombination happened before the yeast split into the five clades. Since the split, some clades have lost their ability to mate. Sex might happen occasionally, but it isn't frequent.

Sex can cause new resistances, which can make this pathogen worse for us humans.

According to the research, the fungus has recombined in the past and can recombine in nature to create new genetic variations.

It's a double-edged sword. Because we learned they could recombine in nature, we could replicate the process in the lab, which could allow us to understand the genetic controls of virulence and drug resistance.

We need to know a lot more about C. auris, but looking at its genes is a good place to start.

The research has appeared in a journal.