BACKGROUND The differentiation and classification of pathogenic Cryptococcus species provides useful data for epidemiological studies and for the clinical diagnosis and treatment of patients. AIMS The aim of this study was to characterise 40 clinical Cryptococcus isolates obtained from patients at the Tropical Medicine Foundation of Amazonas (FMTAM) from 2006 to 2008. METHODS It was used ph...

The Cryptococcus species complex contains two sibling taxa, Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii. Both species are basidiomycetous yeasts and major pathogens of humans and other mammals. Genotyping methods have identified major haploid molecular types of C. neoformans (VNI, VNII, VNB and VNIV) and of C. gattii (VGI, VGII, VGIII and VGIV). To investigate the phylogenetic relationships...

Understanding more about the host's immune response to different Cryptococcus spp. will provide additional insight into the pathogenesis of cryptocococcis. We hypothesized that the ability of C. gattii to cause disease in immunocompetent humans depends on a distinct innate cytokine response of the host to this emerging pathogen. In the current study we assessed the cytokine profile of human per...

INTRODUCTION Cryptococcosis is a systemic fungal infection that affects humans and animals, mainly due to Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii. Following the epidemic of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), fungal infections by C. neoformans have become more common among immunocompromised patients. Cryptococcus gattii has primarily been isolated as a primary pathogen in healthy...

Disease caused by the pathogenic yeast Cryptococcus gattii begins with the inhalation of an infectious propagule. As C. gattii is heavily encapsulated, this propagule is most likely to be a basidiospore. However, most C. gattii strains are infertile in laboratory crosses, and population studies indicate that recombination and dispersal are very restricted. In addition, strains of the alpha mati...

Multilocus sequence typing analysis was applied to determine the genotypes of 147 (137 clinical and 10 environmental) Cryptococcus neoformans and three clinical Cryptococcus gattii isolates from 1993 to 2014 in Korea. Among the 137 clinical isolates of C. neoformans, the most prevalent genotype was ST5 (n = 131), followed by ST31 (n = 5) and ST127 (n = 1). Three C. gattii strains were identifie...

We thank and compliment Engelthaler and Meyer for their letter (1), which provides new information extending our hypothesis that continental drift was a major influence in driving speciation within the Cryptococcus species complexes (2). Their map superimposing the four major current Cryptococcus gattii molecular types/ species (VGI, VGII, VGIII, and VGIV) on the map of Pangea sheds light on po...

A case of cutaneous cryptococcosis due to Cryptococcus neoformans var. gattii in an immunocompetent host is presented. In addition a review of the literature on this subject was carried out and a brief comment made on occurrence of the variety gattii in Brazil.

Cryptococcus gattii, formerly known as Cryptococcus neoformans var gattii, is an encapsulated yeast that causes disease in both immunocompetent and immunosuppressed individuals. The organism enters via the respiratory tract and causes a spectrum of illness ranging from asymptomatic infection to severe illness, including pneumonia and disseminated infection involving multiple sites, including th...

Extracellular DNase activity was studied in 73 strains of Cryptococcus neoformans and 12 strains of Cryptococcus gattii. DNase activity was measured by DNase agar clearance with and without Methyl Green. All strains tested showed extracellular DNase activity and no significant difference was found betweenC. neoformans and C. gattii strains. DNase production was higher in strains from clinical o...