Uncovering the diversity of pathogenic invaders: insights into protozoa, fungi, and worm infections

Front Microbiol. 2024 Mar 25:15:1374438. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1374438. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

Post COVID-19, there has been renewed interest in understanding the pathogens challenging the human health and evaluate our preparedness towards dealing with health challenges in future. In this endeavour, it is not only the bacteria and the viruses, but a greater community of pathogens. Such pathogenic microorganisms, include protozoa, fungi and worms, which establish a distinct variety of disease-causing agents with the capability to impact the host's well-being as well as the equity of ecosystem. This review summarises the peculiar characteristics and pathogenic mechanisms utilized by these disease-causing organisms. It features their role in causing infection in the concerned host and emphasizes the need for further research. Understanding the layers of pathogenesis encompassing the concerned infectious microbes will help expand targeted inferences with relation to the cause of the infection. This would strengthen and augment benefit to the host's health along with the maintenance of ecosystem network, exhibiting host-pathogen interaction cycle. This would be key to discover the layers underlying differential disease severities in response to similar/same pathogen infection.

Keywords: fungi; host-pathogen interaction; immune evasion; pathogens; protozoa; worms.

Publication types

  • Review

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Grant number – INV-033578.