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•Candida bloodstream infections are rising in hospitals. Current diagnostics rely on slow, inconsistent lab cultures—delays in diagnosis mean delays in treatment and worse outcomes, and can be fatal.
•Researchers synthesized precise replicas of fungal sugars to understand the immune response. By reading the unique sugar “fingerprint” of each Candida species, they see which targets the immune system recognizes first.
•This enables a fast, noninvasive bedside test that can deliver reliable results within minutes, guiding timely, targeted therapy (and informing future glycan-based vaccines).
Fungal infections: a serious global problem.
Hospitals worldwide, including Germany, face a growing problem with fungal infections, with an estimated 6 million cases and 3.8 million deaths each year. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Candida—a common fungus most people encounter at least once in life—is a top concern. While many know it from mild, superficial infections such as thrush, Candida (especially C. auris and C. albicans) can also reach the bloodstream and cause life-threatening disease. This is increasingly happening in clinics around the world, where Candida finds an ideal target in weakened patients—after major surgery or chemotherapy, for example. Candida can also cling to medical equipment, like catheters, tubes, or prostheses, forming slimy biofilms that are highly resistant to antifungal drugs. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has recently echoed the WHO in sounding the alarm and calling for better prevention, faster diagnosis, and more effective treatment.
Reading the fungal sugar code.
Currently, screening for fungi is a slow and invasive process: blood samples from suspected patients must be collected and sent to specialized laboratories, where they are cultured.
“These analyses take several days, can be inconsistent, and sometimes miss the target entirely,”– says Emelie Reuber, author of the study, who is about to complete her Ph.D. A former nurse, she has seen firsthand how rapid detection can save lives.
A team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (MPICI) worked closely with clinicians at the University Hospital of Cologne (UKK) and with fungal experts from the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology at the University of Exeter (UK).
Together, they developed a promising alternative by reading the fungus’s sugar coat. The outer wall of Candida is made of about 80% sugars (technically known as “glycans”).
“These are the first structures our immune system scans when it encounters the fungus—like a fingerprint of the pathogen,” explains Prof. Peter H. Seeberger. “We set out to understand exactly what the human immune system detects at the very start.”
Seeberger’s team and collaborators used automation to synthesize well-defined and pure replicas of Candida glycans and print them on glass slides to create glycan microarrays. They then exposed these synthetic sugars to drops of serum from humans and mice with confirmed Candida infections and compared them to samples from healthy individuals.
In infected blood, antibodies bind to specific fungal sugars, revealing the glycan structures present on the surface and recognized by the immune system. “We added a fluorescent tag so that whenever an antibody in the serum latched onto a glycan, the reaction became instantly visible and measurable. The antibodies act like keys fitting a lock, and we can study the signal,” explains Reuber (MPICI).
Fast, reliable diagnosis and a path to prevention.
This method identifies which glycans are recognized by the immune system after exposure, and which elicit the strongest immune reaction. By comparing infected versus healthy samples in both humans and mice, the researchers now know which glycan fingerprints are most readily detected by the immune system. These insights can spark the development of faster, more accessible screening methods. Concretely, a simple test strip at the bedside could use minimal blood and return results within minutes. Today, frail patients need multiple blood draws, and each needle stick raises infection risk.
The approach has the potential to deliver results within minutes—especially in settings where access to sophisticated culture labs is limited. “This work is critical: when diagnosis is delayed, appropriate antifungal therapy is delayed. This often leads to a poor prognosis and serious invasive infections,” says Prof. Neil Gow (University of Exeter). Because each species carries a distinctive sugar fingerprint, the same approach could distinguish several Candida strains, giving clinicians timely information to isolate patients and choose the most effective treatment early on. “Fast diagnosis can save lives; doctors cannot afford to let Candida spread while waiting for results,”- concludes Dr. Rosanne Sprute (UKK).
Beyond diagnosis, the research also points to prevention. The team is now exploring how precisely defined glycans may serve as building blocks for future vaccines designed to target the fungal surface directly. Glycoconjugate vaccines (linking sugars to proteins) have already proved effective for several bacterial diseases. Extending this to fungal infections would protect the most vulnerable patients and trigger strong, long-lasting immune memory.
While some work remains, the path from the lab slide to the bedside is now clear—so patients can get answers and care sooner.
Prof. Peter H. Seeberger, Director Max Planck Inst. of Colloids & Interfaces: Peter.Seeberger@mpikg.mpg.de
Emelie Reuber, PhD Student: Emelie.Reuber@mpikg.mpg.de
Glycan microarray analysis of Candida-related antibodies in human and mice sera guides biomarker discovery and vaccine development, PNAS (2025)
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