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Infection and Immunity, November 1998, p. 5587-5591, Vol. 66, No. 11
Corporacion para Investigaciones Biologicas,
Medellin, Colombia1;
Division of
Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Santa Clara Valley Medical
Center and California Institute for Medical Research, San Jose,
California 951282; and
Division of
Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine, Department of
Medicine, Stanford University Medical School, Stanford, California
943053
Received 27 October 1997/Returned for modification 18 December
1997/Accepted 14 August 1998
Clinical paracoccidioidomycosis is 13 times more common in men than
in women. Estrogen inhibits the transition of mycelia or conidia (the
saprophytic form of Paracoccidoides brasiliensis) to yeasts
(the parasitic form) in vitro. Here, we show that, in male mice that
were infected intranasally (mimicking natural infection) the transition
of conidia in bronchoalveolar lavage fluids to intermediate forms and
yeasts occurred over 24 to 96 h; CFU and yeasts (shown by
histopathology) increased subsequently. In females, transition did not
occur and infection cleared. These events in vivo are consistent with
epidemiological and in vitro observations, suggesting that female
hormones block transition and are responsible for resistance.
Paracoccidioidomycosis is one of the
most important systemic mycoses affecting residents of Latin America.
Its etiological agent is the dimorphic fungus Paracoccidioides
brasiliensis (2). This organism probably occurs in the
mycelial form (M) in nature, and the disease is thought to be acquired
by inhalation of the propagules produced by this phase. Clinical
manifestations are reflected in diverse forms, ranging from
asymptomatic pulmonary lesions to systemic generalized infections. The
tissue form of P. brasiliensis is a multiply budding yeast
(Y) (26, 33).
Clinical disease is more common in adult males, with a male/female
ratio of 13:1 in some areas where it is endemic (2, 20, 33).
In Colombia this ratio is 78:1 (20). The greater incidence
of clinical disease in adult males led to the hypothesis that hormonal
factors might play a role in the pathogenesis of paracoccidioidomycosis
(15, 23, 30). In contrast to overt disease, subclinical
infection, which is detected by delayed-type hypersensitivity to
paracoccidioidin in healthy individuals from areas where the disease is
endemic, does not reveal this sex-based difference. Thus, it appears
that both sexes acquire subclinical infections at the same rate
(19) but that progression to overt disease is much more
frequent in males (33).
A number of hormonal systems in various fungi have been described
(10, 30). Several fungi have cytosolic proteins that bind
mammalian hormones with high affinity and stereospecificity (8,
15, 30, 31).
Data from in vitro studies also support the hypothesis that hormones
might influence the pathogenesis of paracoccidioidomycosis in humans.
In vitro, the inhibition of transition of conidia (C) or M to Y by
estrogens has been described (23, 25). However, the in vivo
effect of the female hormonal milieu on the transition of C to Y has
not been described previously.
The primary objective of this study was to examine the possible in vivo
effect of the different hormonal environments in the different sexes on
the pathogenesis of the experimental infection induced by C in BALB/c
mice.
Fungus and inoculum.
P. brasiliensis ATCC 60855 (21) in M was used to produce C (22). The C
viability was determined by ethidium bromide fluorescence (3), and the inoculum was adjusted so that 3 × 106 to 4 × 106 viable propagules were
contained in 0.06 ml. The inoculum was administered by intranasal
instillation under methoxyflurane anesthesia (24).
Animals.
Specific-pathogen-free male and female BALB/c mice
from Simonsen Laboratories (Gilroy, Calif.) were used. The animals were 4 to 6 weeks old and were supplied with sterilized food and acidified water ad libitum.
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Morphological Transition of Paracoccidioides
brasiliensis Conidia to Yeast Cells: In Vivo Inhibition in Females
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BAL and lung examination for fungal morphology and quantitation. Samples were collected after the mice were euthanized with CO2. The lungs were inflated with RPMI 1640 medium; 0.5-ml volumes were injected and withdrawn several times to obtain samples of BAL fluid. This suspension was centrifuged at 4°C, and the pellet was suspended in 2 ml of physiologic saline. After harvesting of the cells, cytospin slides were prepared and stained with Grocott methenamine-silver nitrate stain (GMS). Fungal cells were counted, and their morphology was assessed (C, intermediate [INT], or Y). The number of fungal cells was expressed as the log10.
Because of the rarity of fungal cells in BAL fluids
96 hours
postinfection in preliminary experiments, we monitored the course of
the infection at later times by quantitating CFU and examining the
pulmonary histopathology. Lungs were removed, weighed, and homogenized
in tissue grinders. The homogenates were serially diluted in saline and
plated in duplicate on modified Sabouraud glucose agar plates with
0.01% thiamine (Mycosel; BBL, Cockeysville, Md.). The plates were
incubated at room temperature for 2 months. Mean colony counts were
obtained and expressed as log10 CFU per entire organ. For
histopathology, lungs were removed and fixed in 10% buffered formalin
and were paraffin embedded. Serial sections were stained with GMS. The
fungi were counted, and their morphology was assessed.
Hematoxylin-and-eosin-stained sections were used to observe the
inflammatory response and the tissue cellularity.
Statistical analyses. Statistical analyses were done on the pooled data from two experiments for the total fungal cells recovered from BAL fluids and for the proportions of C, INT, or Y from the sexes at various times. Analyses of the total fungal cells recovered at each time were done with a Mann-Whitney U test on log10 transformed numbers (GB-STAT, version 6.0; Dynamic Microsystems, Silver Spring, Md.). Changes with time were analyzed with a Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Comparative analyses of the proportions were done by parametric tests with a one- or a two-way ANOVA. Proportions were first transformed with an arcsin transformation to normalize the data (29). An analysis of the changes over time for each sex was done with a one-way ANOVA. Comparisons between sexes with time were done with a two-way ANOVA, and comparisons at each time between sexes were done with a one-way ANOVA, with the C data considered alone and the INT and Y data grouped together. Analyses of the CFU and fungal cell counts in the histologic preparations were done with Student's t test. A P value of <0.05 was considered significant.
Fungi in BAL fluid. At 1 h postinfection there was no difference between sexes in the morphology of the fungus, because only C were observed (Fig. 1). In the males, INT and Y were observed as early as 24 h postinfection. In contrast, few INT and Y were observed in BAL fluids from females up to 96 h.
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CFU in lung cultures. Infected males were unable to control the infection, as shown by CFU recovered from the lungs at 2 to 6 weeks (Table 1).
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Histopathology of the lungs. In the experiments enumerating fungal cells in lung sections at 2, 4, and 6 weeks postchallenge, significant differences were observed between male and female mice. In females, fungal cells were not found at any time. In contrast, in males, 10 to 20 fully transformed Y were counted per section (P < 0.05).
Histological observation showed a chronic granulomatous inflammatory response in males. Lesions were localized in the peribronchiolar and perivascular spaces (Table 2) with many histiocytes and lymphocytes at all times; as the lesions evolved, some plasmacytes and giant cells appeared. In contrast, no granulomas, plasmacytes, or giant cells were seen in females, and histiocytes were less numerous and later disappeared (Fig. 3).
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95% of host cells in both sexes prior to
infection, polymorphonuclear neutrophils comprised the majority of
cells in males after infection, whereas in females, cells other than
macrophages were rarely seen. This suggests that the chemotactic response might be hormonally modulated. Thus, a hormonally mediated influence on the immune system could be an additional or adjunct explanation for the observed sex-based differences in resistance. The
different profile could also relate to different chemotaxins and
chemotaxinogens produced by different morphological forms of the
fungus, i.e., INT and Y eliciting polymorphonuclear neutrophils in
males and C eliciting macrophages in females. In addition, the
macrophage response may be the more protective one (11, 13).
These findings suggest that the inhibition of the fungal transition
process by female hormones results in protection. In addition, it is
possible that males suffer a suppression of their cell-mediated immune
responses to P. brasiliensis due to androgens, as androgens have been shown to possess both immunoinhibitory and immunostimulatory capacities (13, 17).
The histopathology samples obtained at later time points showed the
presence of abundant budding Y, accompanied by an intense inflammatory
response with epithelioid granuloma formation. Also, numbers of CFU
from lungs were higher in males. This suggests that males develop
chronic and progressive paracoccidioidomycosis more frequently, because
females are able to halt the transformation process before 96 h.
The female immune response was strong enough to kill the fungus, as
indicated by negative cultures
2 weeks postchallenge.
The initial events that we describe demonstrate, for the first time in
vivo, that female resistance to paracoccidioidomycosis is related to
early events after infection and that these events might be hormonally
modulated. These findings support our previous hypothesis, derived from
in vitro observations (23, 25), that female hormones inhibit
the transition of P. brasiliensis from M or C to Y, thus
making females less susceptible to paracoccidioidomycosis.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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This work was supported in part by the Instituto Colombiano para el Desarrollo de la Ciencia y la Tecnologia Francisco Jose de Caldas (COLCIENIAS), Bogota, Colombia, and the Corporacion para Investigaciones Biologicas, Medellin, Colombia.
We thank B. L. Gomez for technical assistance, R. Azzi for assistance with histopathology, E. Brummer for contributions to BAL data, and L. Treat-Clemons and F. Montoya for the statistical analyses.
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FOOTNOTES |
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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, 751 S. Bascom Ave., San Jose, CA 95128-2699. Phone: (408) 885-4313. Fax: (408) 885-4306. E-mail: stevens{at}leland.stanford.edu.
Editor: T. R. Kozel
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