Dear medical mycologists, it is time to look outside the box

Abstract

Opulente et al. (Opulente DA, Langdon QK, Buh KV et al. Pathogenic budding yeasts isolated outside of clinical settings. FEMS Yeast Res 2019;19:foz032) published early this year a study aiming to investigate the diversity of wild yeast species, by collecting 1000 environmental samples coming from different substrates across the United States of America. The main finding of this work is the recovery of 54 strains of budding yeasts of which several are having a pathogenic potential in the clinical setting, such as Candida albicans, C. parapsilosis, C. tropicalis, Nakaseomyces glabrata and Pichia kudriavzevii. These findings, discussed here in light of other recent studies highlighting the role of fungicides in the rise of antifungal resistance in the clinical setting or the emergence of Candida auris, demonstrate that our environment can represent an alternative niche for several opportunistic fungal pathogens that can be a concern for human health.