Yeast infections.

Yeasts are unicellular fungi that reproduce by the process of budding in which daughter cells are produced from parents by outpouching of the cell membrane and wall, migration of cytoplasm into the new structure thus formed, and then separation from the parent cell. Yeasts that are pathogenic in humans range in size from 2 to 12 microns in diameter; most, therefore, can be engulfed by phagocytic cells. These pathogens include many of the best known of pathogenic fungi, such as the Candida species, Cryptococcus neoformans, and the lipophilic yeasts of the genus Malassezia.