Cryptococcus gattii causes life-threatening yeast infection in the pulmonary and central nervous systems of humans and animals, and traditionally has been considered to restrict into the tropical and subtropical areas. Despite rare incidence of cryptococcosis caused by C. gattii in Korea, three strains of C. gattii isolated from cryptococcosis patients between 1993 and 2010 were identified. To ...

The oil-producing zygomycete Mortierella alpina 1S-4 is known to accumulate beneficial polyunsaturated fatty acids. We identified the lig4 gene that encodes for a DNA ligase 4 homolog, which functions to repair double strand breaks by non-homologous end joining. We disrupted the lig4 gene to improve the gene targeting efficiency in M. alpina. The M. alpina 1S-4 Δlig4 strains showed no defect in...

As a result of the importance of quick diagnosis of Neurocryptococcosis in patients, generally, molecular techniques are preferred rather than traditional methods for their rapidity. In this research, we made an effort to design and optimize Loop mediated isothermal AMPlification (LAMP) technique using specific primers for ura5 as the target gene for detection of Cryptococcus neoformans and Cry...

In H. polymorpha, there is still a lack of a highly efficient gene disruption method. To help address this issue, we presented a simple and efficient method for both single and multiple gene disruptions in H. polymorpha. The knockout system combined a variation of sticky-end polymerase chain reaction method (SEP), split marker deletion method, co-transformation of single-stranded DNA and mutant...

Cryptococcus neoformans is a basidiomycete fungus that is found worldwide and causes disease in humans and animal species. The fungus grows asexually as a budding yeast. Under laboratory conditions it is capable of sexual reproduction between two mating types. After cell fusion a dikaryotic filament develops, at the tip of which a basidium gives rise to four chains of basidiospores. Because the...

Throughout Brazil, Cryptococcus neoformans is the cause of cryptococcosis, whereas Cryptococcus gattii is endemic to the northern and northeastern states. In this study, the molecular types of 63 cryptococcal isolates recovered from the cerebrospinal fluid of meningitis patients diagnosed between 2008-2010 in Teresina, Piauí, Brazil, were analysed. Out of the 63 patients, 37 (58.7%) were human ...

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...

BACKGROUND Cryptococcus gattii is a pathogenic basidiomycetous yeast that is emerging in temperate climate zones worldwide. C. gattii has repetitively been isolated from numerous tree species. Ongoing environmental sampling and molecular characterization is essential to understand the presence of this primary pathogenic microorganism in the Mediterranean environment. AIMS To report the first ...