Tough Old Fungi — According to Dr. Bettina Fries and her Ph.D. student Tejas Bouklas, the age of a pathogen is relevant to its virulence. They reported their novel finding in the August 13, 2013 issue of mBio. Cryptococcus neoformans is fungus that causes chronic meningoencephalitis in HIV patients and can persist despite anti-fungal therapy. The researchers found that older C. neoformans cells accumulated in infected rats and humans because these cells were more resistant to anti-fungal drugs and host defense mechanisms than younger cells. In conjunction with these findings, Dr. Aviv Bergman and his lab members mathematically modeled the aging of C. neoformans inside a host and demonstrated that the presence of older cells was due to surviving selective pressures inside the host. These findings suggest that a pathogen’s age may influence its virulence, and could be a target for future therapies in treating chronic fungal infections. Dr. Fries is professor of microbiology & immunology and of medicine. Dr. Bergman is professor and chair of systems and computational biology, as well as professor of pathology and of neuroscience.
Posted on: Tuesday, September 24, 2013