Journal of Fungi Article Characterisation of Aspergillus fumigatus Endocytic Trafficking within Airway Epithelial Cells Using High-Resolution Automated Quantitative Confocal Microscopy Nagwa Ben-Ghazzi 1,2, Sergio Moreno-Velásquez 1,3, Constanze Seidel 1, Darren Thomson 1 , David W. Denning 1, Nick D. Read 1,†, Paul Bowyer 1,* and Sara Gago 1,* 1 Manchester Fungal Infection Group, Division of Infection, Immunity and Respiratory Medicine, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Manchester, 2nd Floor, 46 Grafton Street, Manchester M13 9NT, UK;
[email protected] (N.B.-G.);
[email protected] (S.M.-V.);
[email protected] (C.S.);
[email protected] (D.T.);
[email protected] (D.W.D.);
[email protected] (N.D.R.) 2 Faculty of Medical Technology-Benghazi, National Board for Technical & Vocational Education, Libyan Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Al-Salmani, Benghazi 17091, Libya 3 Centre for Organismal Studies (COS), Heidelberg University, Im Neuenheimer Feld 230, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany * Correspondence:
[email protected] (P.B.);
[email protected] (S.G.) † Deceased. Citation: Ben-Ghazzi, N.; Abstract: The precise characterization of the mechanisms modulating Aspergillus fumigatus survival Moreno-Velásquez, S.; Seidel, C.; within airway epithelial cells has been impaired by the lack of live-cell imaging technologies and Thomson, D.; Denning, D.W.; Read, user-friendly quantification approaches. Here we described the use of an automated image analysis N.D.; Bowyer, P.; Gago, S. pipeline to estimate the proportion of A. fumigatus spores taken up by airway epithelial cells, those Characterisation of Aspergillus contained within phagolysosomes or acidified phagosomes, along with the fungal factors contributing fumigatus Endocytic Trafficking to these processes.