My post was about antibiotic resistance. It uses the example of bacteria, but points to the fact that the mechanisms in fungi would no doubt be the same. In fact, not only are they the same, but they respond to the same chemicals. 

Fumagillin was developed as an anti-bactierial and found to be effective against Microsporidia. The ability of microbes to mutate and swap dna is fully documented. These abilities are what allow them to evolve and adapt to new and/or hostile environments which would include competition from other microbes and pressure from anti-biotics. 

The literature is full of examples of bacterial and fungal resistance, often to the same drugs. 

Rocco, T. R., Reinert, S. E., & Simms, H. H. (2000). Effects of Fluconazole Administration in Critically Ill Patients. Analysis of Bacterial and Fungal Resistance. Archives of Surgery, 135(2), 160-165.

> Comparison of critically ill patient populations with and without fluconazole treatment found increased mortality and longer hospital and ICU lengths of stay in the fluconazole-treated group. This group also had higher bacterial pathogen resistance to antibiotics after fluconazole administration compared with bacterial resistance of patients without fluconazole treatment.

Singh, N. (2001). Trends in the epidemiology of opportunistic fungal infections: predisposing factors and the impact of antimicrobial use practices. Clinical infectious diseases, 33(10), 1692-1696.

> In the past decade, the frequency of opportunistic fungal infections has increased, and the spectrum of fungal pathogens has changed. This review discusses the implications of these trends for guiding judicious use of antimicrobial prophylactics and for unraveling the pathophysiological basis of fungal infections.

Agarwal, V., & Nair, S. K. (2013). Antibiotics for Emerging Pathogens. InInfectious Diseases (pp. 7-26). Springer New York.

> Mechanisms by Which Microorganisms Develop Resistance to Antibiotics

> Alteration of the metabolic pathways that are targeted by the antibiotic molecule so that inhibition of these metabolic pathways is not inhibitory or lethal to the microbe. A primary example of this class of resistance is the alterations in the sterol biosynthesis pathway in fungi which confer resistance to azole antibiotics.

Peter Loring Borst
Paula Cohen Lab
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853

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