Microsporidia are a large group of fungal‐related obligate intracellular parasites. They are responsible for infections in humans as well as in agriculturally and environmentally important animals. Although microsporidia are abundant in nature, many of the molecular mechanisms employed during infection have remained enigmatic. In this review, we highlight recent work showing how microsporidia invade, proliferate and exit from host cells. During invasion, microsporidia use spore wall and polar tube proteins to interact with host receptors and adhere to the host cell surface. In turn, the host has multiple defence mechanisms to prevent and eliminate these infections. Microsporidia encode numerous transporters and steal host nutrients to facilitate proliferation within host cells. They also encode many secreted proteins which may modulate host metabolism and inhibit host cell defence mechanisms. Spores exit the host in a non‐lytic manner that is dependent on host actin and endocytic recycling proteins. Together, this work provides a fuller picture of the mechanisms that these fascinating organisms use to infect their hosts.

中文翻译：

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入侵、增殖和退出过程中宿主-微孢子虫相互作用的来龙去脉。

微孢子虫是一大群与真菌相关的专性细胞内寄生虫。它们是人类以及对农业和环境重要的动物感染的原因。尽管微孢子虫在自然界中很丰富，但感染过程中采用的许多分子机制仍然是个谜。在这篇综述中，我们重点介绍了最近的工作，这些工作展示了微孢子虫如何入侵、增殖和从宿主细胞中退出。在入侵过程中，微孢子虫利用孢子壁和极管蛋白与宿主受体相互作用并粘附在宿主细胞表面。反过来，宿主具有多种防御机制来预防和消除这些感染。微孢子虫编码大量转运蛋白并窃取宿主营养以促进宿主细胞内的增殖。它们还编码许多可以调节宿主代谢和抑制宿主细胞防御机制的分泌蛋白。孢子以依赖宿主肌动蛋白和内吞循环蛋白的非裂解方式离开宿主。总之，这项工作更全面地了解了这些迷人生物用来感染宿主的机制。