The transcriptome of dendritic cells redraws the boundaries between pathogenicity and commensalism in yeast
Authors:Lisa Rizzetto1, Irene Stefanini2, Stefano Nenciarini3, Monica Di Paola3, Samantha Riccadonna1, Ivo G. Gut4,5, Marta Gut4,5, Simon Heath4,5 and Duccio Cavalieri3
doi: 10.15698/mic2026.07.882
Volume 13, pp. 282 to 292, published 07/07/2026.
1 Fondazione Edmund Mach, San Michele all’Adige, Trento, 380980, Italy. 2 Department of Life Sciences and Systems Biology, University of Turin, Turin, 10123, Italy. 3 Department of Biology, University of Florence, Florence, 50100, Italy. 4 CNAG-CRG, Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), Barcelona, 08003, Spain. 5 Universidad Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, 08002, Spain.
Keywords:
fungi, yeast, dendritic cells, non-pathogenic, pathogenic, phagolysosome, transcriptomics
Corresponding Author(s):
Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare no competing interests.
Please cite this article as:
Lisa Rizzetto, Irene Stefanini, Stefano Nenciarini, Monica Di Paola, Samantha Riccadonna, Ivo G. Gut, Marta Gut, Simon Heath, Duccio Cavalieri (2026). The transcriptome of dendritic cells redraws the boundaries between pathogenicity and commensalism in yeast. Microbial Cell 13: 282-292. doi: 10.15698/mic2026.07.882
© 2026 Rizzetto et al. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.
Abstract:
Our immune system is constantly exposed to fungi, but it mounts a consistent, disease-related, and species-specific inflammatory response only against a few fungal species. Most of the current understanding of fungus-host interactions is based on a limited number of strains, hence neglecting the fungal intra-specific genetic and phenotypic diversity. To expand our knowledge of the spectrum of immune responses to pathogenic and non-pathogenic fungi, we compared the cytokine and transcriptional profiles of human monocyte-derived dendritic cells exposed to Aspergillus fumigatus, Candida albicans, Candida parapsilosis, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains. The tested species triggered common and species-specific responses, mostly resulting from the different timing of signaling pathways. Faster phagolysosome acidification was observed for pathogenic species. These results highlight the urgency to redraw the boundaries between pathogenicity and commensalism in fungi, shining a spotlight on the timing of the response, rather than solely on the genes triggered by the stimuli.