A recent study has found out that a type of deadly fungus cells communicate with each other to team up and infect your body better. What is worse? This fungus can affect healthy people, which very unlike other fungi which attacks people with weakened immunity.
A legit horror movie, isn't it?
Researchers have found out that they use microscopic, fluid-filled sacs called extracellular vesicles to "talk" to each other. "These vesicles act like 'carrier pigeons,' transferring messages between the fungi and helping them to coordinate their attack on the host cell," said study senior author Robin May, who is also the director of the University of Birmingham's Institute of Microbiology and Infection.
This also the first time that scientists have found a connection between extracellular vesicles and the ability of a fungus to harm the body.
"Our initial expectation was that the fungus would only be able to communicate within a single host cell, but in fact, we discovered that it can communicate over very large — in microbiology terms — distances and across multiple host cell barriers," added Mary.
All you need to know about the fungus
The fungus is called Cryptococcus gattii and is mostly found in tropical and subtropical regions. However, a strain of this fungus started was discovered in British Columbia, Canada in 1999. Some people were also infected in Oregon and Washington State.
Cryptococcus gattii lives in soil and can contaminate people when they inhale the spores. The fungus is known to attack lungs brain and tissues surrounding the brain and spinal cord. According to researchers the deadly fungus has a remarkable ability to grow rapidly within human white blood cells, reported Live Science.
The study has been published in the journal Nature Communications on April 19.
