The present study was conducted to determine the prevalence and significance of Pneumocystis carinii antigenemia in patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and clinically or invasively diagnosed P. carinii pneumonitis. Single serum specimens from 20 AIDS patients invasively examined for P. carinii organisms and 106 AIDS patients with a clinical diagnosis only of P. carinii pneum...

Macrophage-induced lung inflammation contributes substantially to respiratory failure during Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. We isolated a P. carinii cell wall fraction rich in glucan carbohydrate, which potently induces TNF-alpha and macrophage-inflammatory protein-2 generation from alveolar macrophages. Instillation of this purified P. carinii carbohydrate cell wall fraction into healthy rode...

The possible transmission of Pneumocystis carinii f. sp. hominis from patients with P. carinii pneumonia to asymptomatic health care workers (HCW), with or without occupational exposure to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients with P. carinii pneumonia, was examined. HCW in a specialist inpatient HIV-AIDS facility and a control group in the general medical-respiratory service in ...

The disease known as Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) is a major cause of illness and death in persons with impaired immune systems. While the genus Pneumocystis has been known to science for nearly a century, understanding of its members remained rudimentary until DNA analysis showed its extensive diversity. Pneumocystis organisms from different host species have very different DNA sequenc...

Inflammatory cell recruitment contributes to respiratory impairment during Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. We evaluated expression of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), a key participant in leukocyte accumulation, in rats with P. carinii pneumonia. Immunostaining for ICAM-1 was most marked on bronchiolar epithelium but was also evident on type II pneumocytes, endothelium, and macrophag...

The transmission of Pneumocystis carinii from person to person was studied by detecting P. carinii-specific DNA in prospectively obtained noninvasive deep-nasal-swab samples from a child with a documented P. carinii pneumonia (PCP), his mother, two contact health care workers, and 30 hospital staff members who did not enter the patient's room (controls). Nested-DNA amplification was done by usi...

Pneumocystis carinii infections were developed in animals immunosuppressed by dexamethasone treatment either from activation of latent infection (ferret) or by transtracheal inoculation with P. carinii-infected lung tissue from the homologous species (rat or mouse). Convalescent-phase antisera were obtained by stopping dexamethasone treatment after 2 to 4 weeks and allowing animals 5 to 8 weeks...

Pneumocystis jirovecii (formerly Pneumocystis carinii sp. f. hominis) is an unusual fungus exhibiting pulmonary tropism and a highly defined host specificity. It is generally regarded as an opportunistic microorganism causing severe and often fatal pneumonia in AIDS patients. However, with the currently rising number of patients receiving immunosuppressive therapies for malignancies, allogeneic...

BACKGROUND An extrahuman reservoir of human pathogenic Pneumocystis carinii remains unknown. Host to host transmission has been described in animal studies and in cluster cases among immunodeficient patients. P carinii DNA has recently been detected in air filters from inpatient and outpatient rooms in departments of infectious diseases managing patients with P carinii pneumonia (PCP), suggesti...

Pneumocystis carinii is the most common cause of life-threatening pneumonia in immunocompromised patients. In the current study, surfactant protein A (SP-A), the major nonserum protein constituent of pulmonary surfactant, is demonstrated to bind P. carinii in a specific and saturable manner. SP-A is surface bound and does not appear to be internalized or degraded by the P. carinii organism. Fur...