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Longitudinal In Vivo Assessment of Host-Microbe Interactions in a Murine Model of Pulmonary Aspergillosis.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Saini, Shweta 
Poelmans, Jennifer 
Korf, Hannelie 
Dooley, James L 
Liang, Sayuan 

Abstract

The fungus Aspergillus fumigatus is ubiquitous in nature and the most common cause of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) in patients with a compromised immune system. The development of IPA in patients under immunosuppressive treatment or in patients with primary immunodeficiency demonstrates the importance of the host immune response in controlling aspergillosis. However, study of the host-microbe interaction has been hampered by the lack of tools for their non-invasive assessment. We developed a methodology to study the response of the host's immune system against IPA longitudinally in vivo by using fluorine-19 magnetic resonance imaging (19F MRI). We showed the advantage of a perfluorocarbon-based contrast agent for the in vivo labeling of macrophages and dendritic cells, permitting quantification of pulmonary inflammation in different murine IPA models. Our findings reveal the potential of 19F MRI for the assessment of rapid kinetics of innate immune response against IPA and the permissive niche generated through immunosuppression.

Description

Keywords

Infection Control in Health Technology, Medical Imaging, Mycology

Journal Title

iScience

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2589-0042
2589-0042

Volume Title

20

Publisher

Elsevier
Sponsorship
We are grateful for the financial support by the following funding agencies: the European Commission Marie Curie (ITN) BetaTrain (289932), the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO, G.0A75.14, G.0B28.14, and G.069115N), the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie for the SBO NanoCoMIT (IWT SBO 140061), the European ERA-NET project “CryptoView” (third call of the FP7 programme Infect-ERA), and KU Leuven for PF 10/017 (IMIR).