Project

Cryptococcus neoformans is a pathogenic yeasts that infect mostly immunocompromised people. The strain H99 belongs to the C. neoformans variety grubii group. This is the reference strain that have already been sequenced. A project initiated by the Broad Institute aims at analysing the genome of about 300 clinical isolates including 28 of our French isolates. Part of our French isolates have been screened in terms of interaction with macrophages (774). Huge variations in terms of phagocytosis and intracellular proliferation of the yeasts were observed between clinical isolates (Alanio et al. mBio 2011). Thirteen of these clinical isolates together with H99 were studied in terms of transcriptome (using RNASeq). This work was performed by MA Dillies at the PF2. We correlated the expression of about 150 genes with the phenotype of the 13 clinical isolates and H99.