Medical Mycology Journal
Online ISSN : 2186-165X
Print ISSN : 2185-6486
ISSN-L : 2185-6486
Original Articles
Heterogeneity in Pathogenicity-related Properties and Stress Tolerance in Aspergillus fumigatus Clinical Isolates
Daisuke HagiwaraHiroki TakahashiHiroshi TakagiAkira WatanabeKatsuhiko Kamei
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2018 Volume 59 Issue 4 Pages E63-E70

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Abstract

Stress responses and pathogenicity have been extensively studied in Aspergillus fumigatus, the main causative pathogen of life-threatening aspergillosis. The heterogeneity in this pathogen's biology has recently attracted increasing attention. In the present work, we used 16 clinically isolated strains to investigate several properties relevant to the pathogenicity of A. fumigatus, namely, gliotoxin production, elastase activity, hypoxia growth, adaptation to iron-limiting conditions, and growth upon nitrosative, oxidative, and high osmotic stresses. The range of phenotypes was diverse across the strains, with gliotoxin production and elastase activity being negatively correlated at an intermediate index (R=−0.4717). Notably, there were strains that showed extraordinary high production of gliotoxin or elastase activity and hypersensitivity to nitrosative or oxidative stresses. Clustering analysis showed that the 7 potentially pathogenicity-related phenotypes were not correlated with the genetic sub-group or pathotype. These results contribute to the growing awareness of the genetic and phenotypic diversity in A. fumigatus isolates.

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© 2018 The Japanese Society for Medical Mycology
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