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Antarctic marine microplastics reveals environmental persistence and rapid evolution of Candida auris
Summary
Scientists found a dangerous drug-resistant fungus called *Candida auris* in Antarctica for the first time, showing this "superbug" can survive in extreme cold and stick to plastic materials like nylon. The fungus has a special ability to mutate rapidly, which helps it develop resistance to multiple antifungal medications that doctors use to treat infections. This discovery is concerning because it shows how this hard-to-treat fungus can spread globally and continue evolving to resist our best medicines.
Candida ( Candidozyma ) auris is a critical priority fungal pathogen that emerged two decades ago near simultaneously on multiple continents. Since emergence, C. auris resistance to all four classes of antifungal drugs has been described, including pan-drug resistant isolates, sometimes evolving in-patient. Here, we confirm the first isolation of C. auris from Antarctica and show cold-adapted phenotypes and an affinity for binding to nylon. We also provide evidence to suggest mutator phenotypes contribute to the rapid evolution in C. auris and are responsible for the emergence of multiple, distinct genetic clades worldwide. Isolates in clades I, III and IV with a mutator phenotype displayed elevated mutation rates compared to non-auris Candida species. This phenotype had a complex genetic basis and was associated with drug resistance mutations. We postulate that the mutator phenotype has a significant effect on evolutionary potential and is responsible for the emergence and rapid spread of drug-resistance C. auris and novel genetic clades.