2024/05/21 by Eduardo G. Mozo, Orlando Ross, Raif Yuecel +2 · 1 voice
Medicine · #Antifungal resistance and susceptibility #Fungal Infections and Studies #Nail Diseases and Treatments
paper · doi:10.1128/msphere.00281-24
openalex publication_date 2024/05/21 · openalex created_date 2024/05/22 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
ABSTRACT The fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans (C. neoformans ) forms yeast cells of different sizes and morphological characteristics during infection. These features are usually not seen in standard laboratory in vitro conditions. Here, we describe in vivo cell morphologies when C. neoformans is grown in human plasma-like medium at 37°C, 5% CO 2 . We observed mixed-size populations of cells less than 1 µm up to 16.8 µm in cell diameter, increased capsule size, high chitin, and DNA content in larger cells. Our findings show that serum is not required for human plasma-like medium (HPLM)-induced C. neoformans cellular heterogeneity. Thus, this new method offers an opportunity to investigate factors of C. neoformans that mediate pathogenesis or host–pathogen interactions in a physiologically relevant setting. IMPORTANCE We provide a description of new in vitro culture condition using the human plasma-like medium that supports the formation of the full range of in vivo cell morphologies of C. neoformans .