Introduction The majority of deaths from fungal infections occur in Africa. Pneumocystis is an unusual host-specific fungus that takes advantage of a weakened immune system and causes pneumonia in AIDS patients [1]. While Pneumocystis is thought to cause more than 200,000 AIDSrelated deaths annually, it also contributes to more than 50,000 non–AIDS-related deaths [2]. Recent epidemiological dat...

Background Pneumocystis carinii is one of the rare fungi which cause pneumonia in immunocompromised patients. It is important to detect the fungus from the clinical specimens of suspected patients by laboratory tests. Objective To identify Pneumocystis carinii from immunocompetent and immunocompromised patients with lower respiratory tract infections. Methods This study included 300 patients su...

We found that absence of osteopontin (OPN) in immunocompromised Rag2(-/-) mice, which lack T and B cells, made the mice extremely susceptible to an opportunistic fungus Pneumocystis, although immunocompetent OPN-deficient mice could clear Pneumocystis as well as wild-type mice. OPN has been studied as an extracellular protein, and the role of an intracellular isoform of OPN (iOPN) is still larg...

Pneumocystis fungi represent a highly diversified biological group with numerous species, which display a strong host-specificity suggesting a long co-speciation process. In the present study, the presence and genetic diversity of Pneumocystis organisms was investigated in 203 lung samples from woodmice (Apodemus sylvaticus) collected on western continental Europe and Mediterranean islands. The...

The aim of this study was to evaluate of the quantification of Pneumocystis jiroveci using a real-time PCR assay. We tried to verify whether quantification was really effective in differentiating between carriage and Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) using real-time PCR with or without sample species normalization for classifying each sample species (sputum, bronchoalveolar lavage: bronchoalveolar l...

13 HIV infection results in a complex immunodeficiency due to loss of CD4 + T cells, impaired 14 type-I-IFN-responses and B cell-dysfunctions causing susceptibility to opportunistic infection 15 such as Pneumocystis pneumonia and unexplained comorbidities, including bone marrow 16 dysfunctions. Type-I-IFNs and B cells critically contribute to immunity to Pneumocystis lung 17 infection. We recen...

HIV infection results in a complex immunodeficiency due to loss of CD4(+) T cells, impaired type I interferon (IFN) responses, and B cell dysfunctions causing susceptibility to opportunistic infections such as Pneumocystis murina pneumonia and unexplained comorbidities, including bone marrow dysfunctions. Type I IFNs and B cells critically contribute to immunity to Pneumocystis lung infection. ...

Pneumocystis is a fungal genus that contains multiple species. One member of the genus that has not been formally analysed for its phylogenetic relationships and possible species status is the Pneumocystis found in laboratory mice, Pneumocystis murina sp. nov. (type strain ATCC PRA-111(T)=CBS 114898(T)), formerly known as Pneumocystis carinii f. sp. muris. To advance research in this area, appr...

The possible presence of Pneumocystis among healthy adults was examined by detecting Pneumocystis jirovecii-specific DNA in prospectively obtained oropharyngeal wash samples from 50 persons without underlying lung disease or immunosuppression. Pneumocystis carriage, defined by detecting Pneumocystis DNA by nested polymerase chain reaction in 2 independent analyses plus successful mitochondrial ...

Patients with pneumocystis pneumonia have a risk of progressing to acute respiratory failure necessitating admission to intensive care. The case described is of a patient with a newly diagnosed HIV infection presenting with pneumocystis pneumonia. Despite initiating the appropriate pharmacological treatment the patient's clinical condition deteriorated, and required both rescue pharmacological ...