Pathogenicity & virulence of Histoplasma capsulatum - A multifaceted organism adapted to intracellular environments

ABSTRACT

Histoplasmosis is a systemic mycosis caused by the thermally dimorphic fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. Although healthy individuals can develop histoplasmosis, the disease is particularly life-threatening in immunocompromised patients, with a wide range of clinical manifestations depending on the inoculum and virulence of the infecting strain. In this review, we discuss the established virulence factors and pathogenesis traits that make H. capsulatum highly adapted to a wide variety of hosts, including mammals. Understanding and integrating these mechanisms is a key step toward devising new preventative and therapeutic interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Histoplasma capsulatum
• dimorphism
• virulence
• intracellular parasitism
• histoplasmosis

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge Linus Mendes for valuable comments and advice.

Author contributions

Writing – original draft preparation, A.F.V.; writing – review and editing, D.M.Z, A.J.G, J.D.N, and L.N. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the Brazilian agency Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (311179/2017-7 and 408711/2017-7 to L.N.; 311470/2018-1 to AJG), FAPERJ (E-26/202.809/2018 to LN, E-26/202.696/2018 and E-26/202.760/2015 to AJG). AFV was supported by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES, Finance Code 001). J.D.N. and D.Z.M. were supported in part by NIH R21 AI124797.