Sphingolipid metabolism in Candida Species

Abstract

Fungi are non-photosynthetic eukaryotes organisms that are heterotrophic in nature newlineand conventionally and morphologically classified into yeast and filamentous forms. newlineFungi are a very diverse group and act as friends and foes for humankind. Biology of newlinefungi motivated scientists to form thousand years as these are being used for newlineproduction of many valuable products such as antibiotics, vitamins, wine and cheese, newlineand their use in experimental systems for basic biology and animal and plant newlinepathogens (Romani 2011). Fungi microenvironment is made up of soil, water, and newlinehigher organisms vis, plants and animal species. On the basis of high-throughput newlinesequencing data, there are about 5.1 million fungal species present (Blackwell 2011). newlineThe fungal species include different yeasts, molds, mushrooms, plant-parasites and newlineanimal commensal species. Among these groups and Penicillium species, newlineNeurospora species, Saccharomyces, and Candida species are the most important newlinemodel organisms (Blackwell 2011). Fungi are also associated with several diseases newlinein animal including superficial to invasive fungal infections. Invasive fungal infections newlineare more dangerous than superficial fungal infections because they have a higher newlineincidence of clinical mortality. Species of Candida, Aspergillus and Cryptococcus are newlineresponsible for 90% of the invasive fungal infections (Brown et al. 2012). newline