Dissemination from one organ system to another is common to many pathogens and often the key process separating simple illness from fatal infection. The pathogenic Cryptococcus species offer a prime example. Cryptococcal infection is thought to begin in the lungs, as a mild or asymptomatic pneumonia. However, bloodborne dissemination from the lungs to the brain is responsible for the most devastating forms of infection. As with other disseminating infections, the transition likely depends on rare but crucial events, such as the crossing of a tissue barrier. By their nature, these events are difficult to study. Francis et al. (mBio 15:e03078-23, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1128/mbio.03078-23) have addressed this difficulty by developing a powerful imaging pipeline to scan through unprecedented volumes of tissue from mice infected with Cryptococcus at multiple stages of infection. Their observations challenge some of our basic assumptions about cryptococcal pathogenesis, including when and how the organism reaches the bloodstream and the central nervous system.
Keyphrases
- computed tomography
- high resolution
- gram negative
- type diabetes
- white matter
- escherichia coli
- multidrug resistant
- multiple sclerosis
- skeletal muscle
- metabolic syndrome
- intensive care unit
- adipose tissue
- functional connectivity
- resting state
- mass spectrometry
- subarachnoid hemorrhage
- cerebrospinal fluid
- extracorporeal membrane oxygenation
- acute respiratory distress syndrome
- fluorescence imaging
- respiratory failure