Secretomes: the fungal strike force

Abstract

Microorganisms, although being very diverse because they comprise prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria or eukaryotic organisms such as fungi, all share an essential exodigester function. The consequence is their essential need to have a secretome adapted to their environment. The selection pressure exerted by environmental constraints led to the emergence of species with varying complexity in terms of composition of their secretomes. This review on fungal secretomes highlights the extraordinary variability among these organisms, even within the same species, and hence the absolute necessity to fully characterize all their components in the aims of understanding the fundamental mechanisms responsible for secretome plasticity and developing applications notably toward a better control of diseases caused by these pathogens.