Elsevier

Journal of Infection

Volume 74, Issue 3, March 2017, Pages 314-318
Journal of Infection

Letter to the Editor
Detection of Fusarium-specific T cells in hematologic patients with invasive fusariosis

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2016.12.008Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Invasive fusariosis (IF) is an emerging mould infection in hematologic patients.

  • Fusarium-specific T cells are significantly higher in IF patients.

  • In disseminated IF, specific T lymphocytes secretes pro-inflammatory cytokines.

  • In pulmonary IF, we documented only the presence of IL10-secriting T cells.

  • Fusarium-specific T cells could discriminate between different fungal pneumonias.

Section snippets

Author contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: DV, FF, PBa, GR, ML and LP. Performed the experiments: DV, IL, GR and CQ. Analyzed the data: DV, FF, IL, GR and PBa. Wrote the paper: DV, FF, GR, PBa and LP. Provided well-characterized patient samples and related data: FF, MMo, PBr, AC, VC, MMa, AP, EC, RM, FN, MC, LI, PC, DC and TT. Critically revised the manuscript: MMo, PBr, AC, VC, MMa, AP, EC, RM, FN, AB, JPL, LR, MC, LI, PC, DC, TT, and ML.

Conflicts of interest

M. Luppi serves in Advisory Boards for Merck Sharp & Dohme and Gilead Sciences, and received honoraria from these two pharmaceutical industries and from Pfizer and Nanogen. L. Potenza serves in an Advisory Board for Merck Sharp & Dohme and received grant support from Pfeizer. M. Luppi, L. Potenza and P. Barozzi have applied for an Italian patent regarding clinical applications of the ELISpot assay for the diagnosis of Aspergillus infection [PCT: WO2008/075395A3, IT2007/000867]. M. Luppi, L.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank, for the supporting by grants, the Ministero della Salute (Ricerca Finalizzata, GR-2010-2313609, to L.P. and M.L.), the Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro (AIRC, IG 14797-2013, to M.L.), and the Associazione Italiana Lotta alle Leucemie, Linfoma e Mieloma (AIL) – Sezione ‘Luciano Pavarotti’ Modena-ONLUS. The work was part of a scientific cooperation between IRCCS Pavia and AOU Policlinico Modena and a counseling scientific program of P.C. at

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  • Anti-fungal T cell responses in the lung and modulation by the gut-lung axis

    2020, Current Opinion in Microbiology
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    As outlined above T cells do probably not play a major role in preventing invasive Aspergillosis. Instead, fungus-specific effector T cells are expanded in patients with invasive Aspergillus-infections, Mucorales-infections or Fusarium-infections [21–27], as well as Candida blood-stream infections [28•,29] and even allow sensitive and specific diagnosis [21,23,25,28•,29]. These data further suggest that the massively expanded fungus-specific T cell responses may not contribute to infection resolution, but are shifted towards an anti-inflammatory [22] or dysfunctional (Bacher, Scheffold unpublished), non-protective phenotype, but may regain functionality following resolution of the infection [30].

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