Eukaryotic pathogens, like Cryptococcus deuterogattii, can use elevated mutation rates to more rapidly adapt to stresses, such as drug challenges, but at the cost of lower fitness in less stressful environments.
Identification and exploitation of interactions between the antifungal drug fluconazole and FDA- approved drugs has the potential to improve treatment for patients with difficult-to-treat systemic fungal infections.
Centromere deletion in Cryptococcus deuterogattii results in neocentromeres, which span actively expressed genes and at elevated temperatures cen10∆ mutants are unstable leading to chromosome fusion and silencing of the neocentromere.