Frontiers in Human Mycobiome in Health and Disease | Biomedgrid

The humans are colonized by abundant and diverse fungi, collectively referred to as mycobiome which has garnered much less attention to date than the colonizing bacterial microbiome. The advancement of next-generation high throughput sequencing technologies have expanded our knowledge substantially in human microbiome and gradually in human mycobiome in association with health and disease [1,2]. Different fungal taxa were identified in the intestines, oral cavity, skin, vagina and lungs, varying across body sites [3], and also over time and with diet, environment and diseases [4,5]. In human gut, Aspergillus, Candida, Debaryomyces, Malassezia, Penicillium, Pichia, Saccharomyces, Cladosporium, Clavispora, Cyberlindnera, and Galactomyces are the most prevalent fungal genera [6-8]. Particularly, the species Candida albicans colonizes the oropharynx, genital, and gastrointestinal mucosa of 30-70% of healthy individuals [9]. Moreover, fungi of the genus Malassezia predominated the skin mycobiome [10], while Aspergillus species and Scedosporium species are regularly inhaled by lungs in humans [3]. In addition, fungal genera including Candida and Saccharomyces were identified in breastmilk [11,12]. Edible mushrooms, plant pathogen and xerophiles (all fungi) were found in vegetarian gastrointestinal tract [13,14].