Challenges in Serologic Diagnostics of Neglected Human Systemic Mycoses: An Overview on Characterization of New Targets

Abstract

Systemic mycoses have been viewed as neglected diseases and they are responsible for deaths and disabilities around the world. Rapid, low-cost, simple, highly-specific and sensitive diagnostic tests are critical components of patient care, disease control and active surveillance. However, the diagnosis of fungal infections represents a great challenge because of the decline in the expertise needed for identifying fungi, and a reduced number of instruments and assays specific to fungal identification. Unfortunately, time of diagnosis is one of the most important risk factors for mortality rates from many of the systemic mycoses. In addition, phenotypic and biochemical identification methods are often time-consuming, which has created an increasing demand for new methods of fungal identification. In this review, we discuss the current context of the diagnosis of the main systemic mycoses and propose alternative approaches for the identification of new targets for fungal pathogens, which can help in the development of new diagnostic tests.

A Promising Tool in Serological Diagnosis: Current Research Progress of Antigenic Epitopes in Infectious Diseases

“…The culture examination of clinical specimens is usually used as the standard diagnosis of systemic mycosis, and the detection of fungal antigen or antibody is also one of the means for early diagnosis of invasive fungal infection, but for most fungal diseases, it is often unavailable [ 174 ]. All in all, the role of epitopes in the diagnosis of mycosis needs to be more explored to overcome the challenges that the wide antigenic variability of the clinical isolates the lack of standardization of serological.…”