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New Way out for Cryptococcus

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New Way out for Cryptococcus RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS FUNGAL PATHOGENESIS New way out for Cryptococcus Macrophages are part of the innate to cause disease in immunocom- main virulence factor of C. neofor- immune armoury that responds to promised individuals, but because mans is the capsule, and the greatly pathogen invasion. Usually, mac- it is a model for the switch from a reduced extrusion of an acapsular rophages ingest and kill pathogens, benign environmental organism to mutant led Alvarez and Casadevall to but some pathogens multiply inside a voracious pathogen of mammals propose that capsular polysaccharide the phagocyte, then exit by lysing and amoebae. contributes to the exit mechanism. and killing it. Two reports published The phagosome is a vacuole that Several bacterial pathogens can in Current Biology reveal a third is formed around a pathogen after manipulate the cytoskeleton during outcome of pathogen ingestion by ingestion by phagocytosis. When the pathogenesis, including members of macrophages: Cryptococcus neoform- phagosome fuses with a lysosome the Legionella, Listeria and Shigella ans can replicate after phagocytosis the ingested pathogen is killed by genera. As C. neoformans cells were and then exit by a novel mechanism a combination of enzyme action propelled out of the macrophages, that leaves both the macrophage and and oxidative burst. Alvarez and both groups proposed a role for the pathogen intact. Casadevall, and Ma et al. noticed that the cytoskeleton in pathogen exit. Cryptococcosis has come to after ingestion by macrophages, the However, inhibiting actin polymeri- prominence owing to the ability of phagosomes containing replicated zation only increased the frequency the causative agent, C. neoformans, to C. neoformans cells fused with the with which fungal cells were expelled. cause meningoencephalitis and, on plasma membrane, thereby expelling So, actin depolymerization might rare occasions, lung disease in AIDS the pathogen into the extracellular have a role in the exit process. sufferers. Understanding the patho- milieu. Importantly, both studies Moreover, Alvarez and Casadevall genesis of C. neoformans is important showed that phagosomes matured contend that the cytoskeleton might not only because of its propensity through fusion with lysosomes to also function to retain pathogens produce giant phagolysosomes before intracellularly. replicated C. neoformans cells were Deducing the underlying expelled. Expelled fungi continued mechanism of this new process will to replicate and macrophages were undoubtedly reveal the pathogenic morphologically normal. This new strategy of C. neoformans. This new mode of exit from a macrophage by a cellular exit strategy might also prove pathogen was then explored further to be important in the pathogenesis by both groups using broadly similar of other intracellular pathogens, approaches. such as Legionella pneumophila, or Both groups showed that ingested retroviruses. Susan Jones inert beads were not expelled from macrophages, linking a fungal prop- ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPERS Ma, H. et al. erty to the exit mechanism. Alvarez Expulsion of live pathogenic yeast by macrophages. Curr. Biol. 16, 2156–2160 (2006) | and Casadevall also showed that even Alvarez, M. & Casadevall, A. Phagosome extrusion when inert beads were phagocytosed and host-cell survival after Cryptococcus together with fungi, only the fungi neoformans phagocytosis by macrophages. Curr. Biol. 16, 2161–2165 (2006) were able to exit the phagocyte. The RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS ADVISORS ADRIANO AGUZZI University RITA COLWELL KEITH GULL BERNARD MOSS PHILIPPE SANSONETTI Hospital of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland University of Maryland Biotechnology University of Oxford, Oxford, UK NIAID, National Institutes of Health, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France NORMA ANDREWS Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA NEIL GOW Bethesda, MD, USA CHIHIRO SASAKAWA Yale University School of Medicine, STANLEY FALKOW University of Aberdeen, JOHN REX University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan New Haven, CT, USA Stanford University School of Aberdeen, UK AstraZeneca, Cheshire, UK ROBIN WEISS ARTURO CASADEVALL Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA HANS-DIETER KLENK DAVID ROOS University College London, The Albert Einstein College of TIMOTHY FOSTER Philipps University, Marburg, University of Pennsylvania, London, UK Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland Germany Philadelphia, PA, USA NATURE REVIEWS | MICROBIOLOGY VOLUME 5 | JANUARY 2007 | 3 © 2007 Nature Publishing Group .
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