Journal
NATURE MICROBIOLOGY
Volume 4, Issue 12, Pages 2430-2441Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/s41564-019-0558-7
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) [R01AI130128, 2R01AI081838]
- Burroughs Wellcome Fund
- Molecular and Cellular Biology Training Grant at Dartmouth from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences [5T32 GM 8704-20]
- NIH NIAID Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award [F31AI138354]
- National Science Foundation [MCB 1817342]
- Dartmouth College
- Cystic Fibrosis Foundation [STANTO15RO]
- NIH [P20-GM113132]
- [NSF DBI-1429826]
- [NIH S10-OD016290]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Microbial populations form intricate macroscopic colonies with diverse morphologies whose functions remain to be fully understood. Despite fungal colonies isolated from environmental and clinical samples revealing abundant intraspecies morphological diversity, it is unclear how this diversity affects fungal fitness and disease progression. Here we observe a notable effect of oxygen tension on the macroscopic and biofilm morphotypes of the human fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus. A hypoxia-typic morphotype is generated through the expression of a subtelomeric gene cluster containing genes that alter the hyphal surface and perturb interhyphal interactions to disrupt in vivo biofilm and infection site morphologies. Consequently, this morphotype leads to increased host inflammation, rapid disease progression and mortality in a murine model of invasive aspergillosis. Taken together, these data suggest that filamentous fungal biofilm morphology affects fungal-host interactions and should be taken into consideration when assessing virulence and host disease progression of an isolated strain.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available