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The pursuit of cryptococcal pathogenesis: heterologous hosts and the study of cryptococcal host-pathogen interactions
Roanna London1, Benjamin Samuel Orozco, Eleftherios Mylonakis
1Division of Infectious Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
Abstract:
Analysis of the molecular mechanisms by which a pathogen interacts with the human host is most commonly performed using a mammalian model of infection. However, several virulence-related genes previously shown to be involved in mammalian infection with Cryptococcus neoformans have also been shown to play a role in the interaction of these pathogens with invertebrates, such as Acanthamoeba castellanii, Caenorhabditis elegans, Dictyostelium discoideum, Drosophila melanogaster and Galleria mellonella. The study of host-pathogen interactions using these model hosts has allowed rapid screening of mutant libraries and can be used for the study of evolutionarily preserved aspects of microbial virulence and host response.
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