Candida Infection Biology – fungal armoury, battlefields ... - FINSysB

Friend or Foe: Systems biology approaches to elucidate
the interaction between fungi and their hosts
Duccio Cavalieri
Department of Preclinic and Clinic Pharmacology, University of Florence, viale Pieraccini 6,
50139 Firenze. duccio.cavalieri@unifi.it, telephone number: +39-055-4271327, fax number:
+39-055-4271280
Modelling the networks subtending the fruitful coexistence of fungi and their
mammalian host is becoming increasingly important to control emerging fungal
pathogens. The goal of Systems Biology is to obtain a superior level of knowledge
of how function arises in dynamic interactions. Systems Biology requires the
acquisition of information on the different levels of regulation of a biological system
and its integration to unravel the complexity and the dynamic nature of the hostfungus
interaction. Immunity is not simply the product of a series of discrete linear
signaling pathways; rather it is comprised of a complex set of integrated responses
arising from a dynamic network of thousands of molecules subject to multiple
influences. In this perspective the fungal microbiota and the host should be
analyzed as an ecosystem, and disease considered as an alteration of the
equilibrium. Our work addresses host-fungus interaction with a special focus on
systems biology approaches to investigate the mechanisms developed by Candida
albicans and Aspergillus fumigatus to circumvent host immune responses during
fungal infections and the phenotypic traits that potentially make S.cerevisiae a
microorganism generally recognized as safe. Such genome wide integrative
approaches hold the promise to significantly improve our ability to understand
which fungal traits can be considered potential threats and the regulatory networks
involved in immune subversion.
42