BioluminescentAspergillus fumigatus, a New Tool for Drug Efficiency Testing and In Vivo Monitoring of Invasive Aspergillosis

• DOI: 10.1128/aem.01288-08
• Publication Date: 2008-09-27T00:44:50Z
• Authors: Matthias Brock; Grégory Jouvion; Sabrina Droin-Ber...; Olivier Dussurget; Marie-Anne Nicola; Oumaïma Ibrahim-...
• Keywords: Bioluminescence imaging; Light emission

ABSTRACT Aspergillus fumigatus is the main cause of invasive aspergillosis in immunocompromised patients, and only a limited number drugs for treatment are available. A screening method new antifungal compounds urgently required, preferably an approach suitable vitro vivo studies. Bioluminescence imaging powerful tool to study temporal spatial resolutions infection effectiveness drugs. Here, we describe construction bioluminescent A. strain by fusing promoter glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase gene from with luciferase Photinus pyralis control expression reporter. transformed this construct revealed high bioluminescence under all tested growth conditions. Furthermore, light emission correlated conidia used inoculation biomass formed after different incubation times. The strains were antifungals several independent methods, including determination microplate reader direct visualization IVIS 100 system. Moreover, when glucocorticoid-treated immunosuppressed mice infected strain, was detected lungs, allowing progression aspergillosis. Therefore, disease development, localization, burden fungi within tissues may also provide vivo.