Ultimately, the goal is to search out ways to stop fatal disease brought on by Cryptococcus neoformans from occurring in humans and animals. But until then, finding recent and higher ways to treat existing disease and its symptoms stays a high priority.
Kristen Nielsen's laboratory on the Center for One Health Research has taken a step toward higher treatment of Cryptococcus, completing a six-year study evaluating the virulence of 38 clinical isolates from different strains of Cryptococcus. The results are published in
“The question we're addressing is: Can we predict serious disease outcomes in patients?” said Nelson, a professor of microbiology and immunology on the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. “If we can predict disease outcomes, we can better treat patients. In these studies, we identified not only the genes that allow Cryptococcus to cause disease, but also those gene alleles.” It also identifies aspects that make it more diseased or less diseased.”
Cryptococcus neoformans is a variety of fungus that could cause serious infections in humans and lots of species of animals. It is usually present in the environment, especially in soil contaminated by bird droppings. When an individual inhales microscopic spores of Cryptococcus, it might result in an infection called Cryptococcus. This infection often affects the lungs and may spread to the brain. People with compromised immune systems, similar to those with HIV/AIDS or organ transplant recipients, are at greater risk.
“We're laying the foundation for future treatments,” Nelson said. “Once we understand the biology of infection, and how it is affected by different Cryptococcus gene alleles, we can develop new treatments targeting these genes.”
Nelson got here to Virginia Tech this fall after 17 years on the University of Minnesota. She brought home $8 million value of NIH grants for her recent lab at COHR. One of those grants supported this latest research findings.
COHR is a collaboration between the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine and the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, founded on the principles of One Health, the philosophy that human, animal and environmental health are interconnected.
The entire genome of every strain was sequenced to find out which genes were related to different disease severities in a mouse model that mimics the human disease, Nelson said. Further identification of disease effects and their genetic causes, and possibly higher disease treatments, will advance from this study.
“Some of our African colleagues are going to develop diagnostic tests that will identify allelic differences in the genes we have identified. The hope is that these diagnostic tests can be used in the clinic to predict disease severity. can be done and how that will affect the treatment strategy,” Nelson said. “My group can be looking closely on the function of the genes we identified and the way they're affecting disease.”