Recent Advances in Genome Editing Tools in Medical Mycology Research

Manipulating fungal genomes is an important tool to understand the function of target genes, pathobiology of fungal infections, virulence potential, and pathogenicity of medically important fungi, and to develop novel diagnostics and therapeutic targets. Here, we provide an overview of recent advances in genetic manipulation techniques used in the field of medical mycology. Fungi use several strategies to cope with stress and adapt themselves against environmental effectors. For instance, mutations in the 14 alpha-demethylase gene may result in azole resistance in Aspergillus fumigatus strains and shield them against fungicide’s effects. Over the past few decades, several genome editing methods have been introduced for genetic manipulations in pathogenic fungi. Application of restriction enzymes to target and cut a double-stranded DNA in a pre-defined sequence was the first technique used for cloning in Aspergillus and Candida. Genome editing technologies, including zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs) and transcriptional activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), have been also used to engineer a double-stranded DNA molecule. As a result, TALENs were considered more practical to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms. Recently, Class 2 type II Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (CRISPR)/Cas9 technology has emerged as a more useful tool for genome manipulation in fungal research.