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Volume 164, Issue 8

Microbe Profile: Aspergillus fumigatus: a saprotrophic and opportunistic fungal pathogen Open Access

This article is part of the Microbe Profiles collection.

Abstract

Aspergillus fumigatus is a saprotrophic fungus that continuously disseminates spores (conidia) into the environment. It is also the most common and opportunistic aerial fungal pathogen, causing allergic and chronic lung pathologies including the fatal invasive aspergillosis in immunocompromised patients. The pathobiology of aspergillosis is complex and depends on the competence of the host immune system. Moreover, A. fumigatus has become a model to study unique features of fungi. This includes the fungal cell wall, which not only acts as a rigid skeleton for protection against hostile environments but also plays significant roles during infection by manipulating the host immune response.

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Keyword(s): Aspergillus fumigatus , cell wall , Immune response , polysaccharides and saprotrophic
© 2018 The Authors
  • This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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2018-08-01
2024-04-16
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