Assessment of Host Immune Responses to Fungal Pathogens

Fungal infection is a challenge to medical treatment. The pathogenic and opportunistic fungi cause superficial or systemic infections, which can lead to severe illness and even a high degree of mortality and morbidity. Host immunity responses against fungi are quite complex and diverse, depending on the fungal pathogens or infection types. Studying the immune responses of humans towards the fungi would be useful to understand the mechanism of fungal infection and to inform infection control and drug therapeutics. Herein, we describe how to study the host immune responses against fungi, particularly on Aspergillus fumigatus, one of the important pathogens that causes deep mycosis. These methods are relevant to investigations on gene functions in antifungal immunity, drug pharmacology, biomarker development, and clinical efficacy.