[Investigation of Virulence Factors by "Omics" Approaches].

[Investigation of Virulence Factors by "Omics" Approaches]. Med Mycol J. 2018;59(2):J35-J40 Authors: Takahashi-Nakaguchi A, Hagiwara D, Takahashi H, Sakai K, Toyotome T, Watanabe A, Kamei K, Gonoi T Abstract 　Aspergillus fumigatus is the predominant fungal pathogen responsible for life-threatening systemic infections in humans. Recently developed high-throughput whole genome sequencing (WGS) and RNA-Seq technologies have proven to be powerful tools for systematically investigating pathogenic organisms. In this review, we present new virulence factors obtained through our "omics" researches on A. fumigatus.　We first sequenced genomes of A. fumigatus stains isolated from one infected patient at different time points, and made an important finding that although the genome (microsatellites) type of the infected strain remained unchanged, the strain exhibited several genetic changes, including acquiring therapeutic drug resistance, during patient treatment for 1.5 years.　Of the various presentations of aspergillosis, pulmonary aspergilloma (PA) is one of the most common forms of A. fumigatus infection, where fungus balls are composed of fungal hyphae, inflammatory cells, fibrin, mucus, and tissue debris. Chronic necrotizing pulmonary aspergillosis (CNPA), also known as semi-invasive or invasive aspergillosis, is locally invasive and predominantly seen in patients with mild immunodeficiency or with a chronic lung disease. We compared...
Source: Medical Mycology Journal - Category: Biology Tags: Med Mycol J Source Type: research