Interstrain variability in the virulence of Aspergillus fumigatus and Aspergillus terreus in a Toll-deficient Drosophila fly model of invasive aspergillosis
Interstrain variability in the virulence of Aspergillus fumigatus and Aspergillus terreus in a Toll-deficient Drosophila fly model of invasive aspergillosis
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DOI：
10.3109/13693780903148346
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发表时间：
2010-03-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.9
通讯作者：
Kontoyiannis, Dimitrios P.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ben-Ami, Ronen;Lamaris, Gregory A.;Kontoyiannis, Dimitrios P.
曲霉属成员是机会性真菌病原体，其特征在于其基因组多样性。然而，曲霉菌株和物种之间在基因组水平上的变异是否会转化为毒力的显着差异尚不清楚。因此，我们使用先前描述的 Toll 缺陷果蝇侵袭性曲霉病模型，研究了烟曲霉和土曲霉分离株的毒力的株间和种间变异。然后，我们寻找果蝇模型中的存活率与通过重复序列聚合酶链反应 (rep-PCR) 定义的品系相关性之间的关联。我们观察到感染烟曲霉与土曲霉的果蝇的存活率没有显着差异，或者感染定植与入侵菌株的果蝇的存活率没有显着差异。然而，在两种曲霉属物种中，我们观察到果蝇存活率存在显着的株间变异（通过对数秩检验，P < 0.001）。使用rep-PCR，我们鉴定了两个显性烟曲霉进化枝，它们与Toll缺陷果蝇中显着不同的存活率相关（P=0.007）。我们得出的结论是，侵袭性曲霉病的苍蝇模型能够对曲霉属物种的毒力变化进行高通量筛选，并可能发现致病性不同的烟曲霉分支。
Members of the genus Aspergillus are opportunistic fungal pathogens characterized by their genomic diversity. However, whether variations among Aspergillus strains and species at the genome level translate into significant differences in virulence is unclear. Therefore, we studied the interstrain and interspecies variations in virulence for a collection of Aspergillus fumigatus and Aspergillus terreus isolates using a previously described model of invasive aspergillosis in Toll-deficient fruit flies. We then looked for associations between survival in the fly model and strain relatedness as defined by repetitive-sequence polymerase chain reaction (rep-PCR). We observed no significant differences in the survival of flies infected with A. fumigatus vs. A. terreus or flies infected with colonizing vs. invasive isolates of either species. However, in both Aspergillus species we observed significant interstrain variability in fly survival (P < 0.001 by the log-rank test). Using rep-PCR, we identified two dominant A. fumigatus clades that were associated with significantly different survival rates in Toll-deficient flies (P=0.007). We conclude that the fly model of invasive aspergillosis enables high-throughput screening of Aspergillus species for variations in virulence and may uncover distinct A. fumigatus clades that differ in their pathogenicity.