Accelerated decay of C3b to iC3b when C3b is bound to the Cryptococcus neoformans capsule

Incubation of encapsulated and nonencapsulated Cryptococcus neoformans in normal human serum (NHS) leads to activation and binding of potentially opsonic fragments of complement component C3 to the yeast cells. Analysis of the molecular forms of C3 after incubation of encapsulated cryptococci in NHS showed that the percentage of bound C3 occurring as iC3b approached 100% after 8 min. The percentage of bound C3 occurring as iC3b on nonencapsulated cryptococci never exceeded 70%, even after 60 min of incubation in NHS. Conversion of C3b to iC3b was assessed further by incubating C3b-coated cryptococci for various times with a mixture of complement factors H and I at 40% of their respective physiological concentrations. Most, if not all, of the C3b on encapsulated cryptococci was converted to iC3b at a single fast rate. Conversion of C3b to iC3b on nonencapsulated cryptococci did not follow a single rate constant and appeared to have a fast and a slow component. Studies of the requirements for factors H and I in cleavage of C3b to iC3b showed steep dose-response curves for both factors in the case of encapsulated cryptococci and shallow curves with C3b bound to nonencapsulated cryptococci. Taken together, our results indicate that C3b molecules bound to encapsulated cryptococci have a uniformly high susceptibility to conversion to iC3b by factors H and I. In contrast, a significant portion of the C3b bound to nonencapsulated cryptococci is very resistant to conversion to iC3b by factors H and I.