ABSTRACT
Adaptation refers to capabilities or structures of an organism that improve its chances for survival in a specific environment. Many bacteria, especially archaebacteria, have attracted attention because of their ability to withstand extreme conditions in their ecological niches, be it high temperatures in boiling geysers, enormous salt concentrations, or the sea bed. In the case of human pathogens, adaptation means adjustment to the various sorts of defenses that have been developed to avoid colonization and infection. These span from very unspecific to highly sophisticated and precisely regulated mechanisms. An extraordinary number of strategies to escape the human body's defenses have been developed by the great variety of organisms that can cause infection. Infectious rnicro-organisms owe their success to their ability to adapt to and therefore escape the hostile environment of the human body. Despite this, mechanisms responsible for adaptation to host niches are poorly understood in human pathogenic fungi.
