Aspergillus fumigatus is a filamentous fungus which can cause invasive disease in immunocompromised individuals. A. fumigatus can grow in medium containing up to 80% human serum, despite very low concentrations of free iron. The purpose of this study was to determine the mechanism by which A. fumigatus obtains iron from the serum iron-binding protein transferrin. In iron-depleted minimal essent...

The opportunistic fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus is increasingly found as a coinfecting agent along with Pseudomonas aeruginosa in cystic fibrosis patients. Amongst the numerous molecules secreted by P. aeruginosa during its growth, phenazines constitute a major class. P. aeruginosa usually secreted four phenazines, pyocyanin (PYO), phenazine-1-carboxamide (PCN), 1-hydroxyphenazine (1-HP...

Aspergillus fumigatus complex comprises A. fumigatus and other morphologically indistinguishable cryptic species. We retrospectively studied 362 A. fumigatus complex isolates (353 samples) from 150 patients with proven or probable invasive aspergillosis or aspergilloma (2, 121, and 6 samples, respectively) admitted to the hospital from 1999 to 2011. Isolates were identified using the β-tubulin ...

Nucleotide sequences of 426 bp from the mitochondrial (mt) cytochrome b genes of six anamorph species and two species of Neosartorya teleomophs of Aspergillus section Fumigati were determined. These sequences were used to build nucleotide- and amino acid-based trees for phylogenetic analysis. Thirteen strains of A. fumigatus including 10 clinical isolates of A. fumigatus, 1 type culture of A. f...

The in vitro susceptibility of 105 clinical and environmental strains of Aspergillus fumigatus and Aspergillus flavus to antifungal drugs, such as amphotericin B, azoles, and echinocandins was evaluated by the broth microdilution method proposed by the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST). Following the EUCAST-proposed breakpoints, 20% and 25% of the clinical and ...

Gliotoxin is an important virulence factor of Aspergillus fumigatus. Although GliA putatively belongs to the major facilitator superfamily in the gliotoxin biosynthesis cluster, its roles remain unclear. To determine the function of GliA, we disrupted gliA in A. fumigatus. gliA disruption increased the susceptibility of A. fumigatus to gliotoxin. The gliT and gliA double-disrupted mutant had ev...

Aspergillus fumigatus sensitization and culture in asthma are associated with disease severity and lung function impairment, but their relationship with airway inflammation is poorly understood. We investigated the profile of 24 sputum inflammatory mediators in A. fumigatus culture-positive or-negative moderate-to-severe asthmatics. Fifty-two subjects were recruited from a single center. A. fum...

Background and Purpose: Actinomycetes have been discovered as source of antifungal compounds that are currently in clinical use. Invasive aspergillosis (IA) due to Aspergillus fumigatus has been identified as individual drug-resistant Aspergillus spp. to be an emerging pathogen opportunities a global scale. This paper described the antifungal activity of one terrestrial actinomycete against the...

The lack of an experimentally amenable sexual genetic system in Aspergillus fumigatus is a major limitation in the study of the organism's pathogenesis. A recent comparative genome analysis revealed evidence for potential sexuality in A. fumigatus. Homologs of mating type genes as well as other genes of the "sexual machinery" have been identified in anamorphic A. fumigatus. The mat1-2 gene enco...