Abstract
Fungal morphology significantly impacts the host response. Filamentation and tissue penetration by Candida and Aspergillus species are essential for virulence, while growth as a yeast allows the thermal dimorphic fungi Coccidiodes, Histoplasma, and Talaromyces to reside inside phagocytes and disseminate. The basidiomycete Cryptococcus neoformans exhibits an unusual yeast-to-titan transition thought to enhance pathogenicity by increasing fungal survival in the host lung and dissemination to the central nervous system. In a common laboratory strain (H99), in vitro and in vivo titan induction yields a heterogenous population including >10 μm titan cells, 5-7 μm yeast cells and 2-4 μm titanides. Previous reports have shown that titan cells are associated with enhanced virulence and the generation of aneuploid cells that facilitate stress adaptation and drug resistance, while small (>10 μm) cells are associated with increased dissemination. However, the relationship between titan cells, small cells, and titanides remains unclear. Here, we characterize titanides and small cells in H99 and three clinical isolates and show that titanides share the lipid membrane order of their titan mothers and the G0 quiescent-like DNA staining of mating spores. In addition, we show that both titanizing and non-titanizing isolates exhibit altered capsule structure and PAMP exposure over time during in vitro culture, and generate aneuploidy in vivo.
Author summary The human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans causes 200,000 HIV-associated deaths each year. In the lung, Cryptococcus makes an unusual yeast-to-titan morphological switch that contributes to disease development by altering immune polarization and introducing aneuploidy underlying host stress and drug resistance. Specifically, a proportion of 5 um haploid yeast endoreduplicate and swell, converting to large (> 10 um) polyploid titan cells that can then produce genetically distinct daughter cells. We recently developed an in vitro protocol for inducing large titan cells and additionally observed a novel small “titanide” cell type. Here we investigate the nature and origin of these small cells, demonstrating that they emerge during both in vitro and in vivo mouse-passaged titan induction in the well characterised lab strain H99 and are also apparent in a titanizing clinical isolate, Zc8. We show that these titanide cells share features with titan mothers (lipid order) and with spores produced during heterothalic mating. Finally, we show that the capacity of clinical isolates to produce both titan and titanide cells impacts aneuploidy and the emergence of drug resistance in vivo.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
Funding XZ is supported by a studentship from the Darwin Trust. HZ is supported by an NC3Rs PhD studentship (NC/R001472/1). PSC was funded by a BBSRC MIBTP PhD studentship. RAD and SHM are supported by the Academy of Medical Sciences (SBF004_1008) and the Medical Research Council (MR S024611_1). MM is funded by the University of Birmingham School of Biosciences. AC and DMM were supported by the NC3Rs (NC/N002482/1). IMD is funded by the Wellcome Trust (102705 and 097377) and the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology (MR/N006364/1). ERB is supported by a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship jointly funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society (211241/Z/18/Z).
Substantial revision of the text and includes additional experimental data based on peer-review feedback. We thank the anonymous reviewers who made this possible.
