Aspergillus fumigatus is a saprotrophic filamentous fungus and also the most prevalent airborne fungal pathogen of humans. Depending on the host’s immune status, the variety of diseases caused by A. fumigatus ranges from allergies in immunocompetent hosts to life-threatening invasive infections in patients with impaired immunity. In contrast to the majority of other Aspergillus species, which are in most cases nonpathogenic, A. fumigatus features an armory of virulence determinants to establish an infection. For example, A. fumigatus is able to evade the human complement system by binding or degrading complement regulators. Furthermore, the fungus interferes with lung epithelial cells, alveolar macrophages, and neutrophil granulocytes to prevent killing by these immune cells. This chapter summarizes the different strategies of A. fumigatus to manipulate the immune response. We also discuss the potential impact of recent advances in immunoproteomics to improve diagnosis and therapy of an A. fumigatus infection.

Aspergillus fumigatus is an opportunistic, airborne pathogen that causes invasive aspergillosis in immunocompromised patients. During the infection process, A. fumigatus is challenged by hypoxic microenvironments occurring in inflammatory, necrotic tissue. To gain further insights into the adaptation mechanism, A. fumigatus was cultivated in an oxygen-controlled chemostat under hypoxic and normoxic conditions. Transcriptome analysis revealed a significant increase in transcripts associated with cell wall polysaccharide metabolism, amino acid and metal ion transport, nitrogen metabolism, and glycolysis. A concomitant reduction in transcript levels was observed with cellular trafficking and G-protein-coupled signaling. To learn more about the functional roles of hypoxia-induced transcripts, we deleted A. fumigatus genes putatively involved in reactive nitrogen species detoxification (fhpA), NAD ؉ regeneration (frdA and osmA), nitrogen metabolism (niaD and niiA), and respiration (rcfB). We show that the nitric oxygen (NO)-detoxifying flavohemoprotein gene fhpA is strongly induced by hypoxia independent of the nitrogen source but is dispensable for hypoxic survival. By deleting the nitrate reductase gene niaD, the nitrite reductase gene niiA, and the two fumarate reductase genes frdA and osmA, we found that alternative electron acceptors, such as nitrate and fumarate, do not have a significant impact on growth of A. fumigatus during hypoxia, but functional mitochondrial respiratory chain complexes are essential under these conditions. Inhibition studies indicated that primarily complexes III and IV play a crucial role in the hypoxic growth of A. fumigatus.

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