Recovery of the Paracoccidioides brasiliensis virulence after animal passage promotes changes in the antioxidant repertoire of the fungus

Abstract

Paracoccidioides brasiliensis is the agent of paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM), a cause of disease in healthy and immunocompromised persons in Latin America. The infection begins after inhalation of the fungal propagules and their thermo-dimorphic shift to yeast form. The development of the disease depends on factors associated with the host immune response and the infectious agent's characteristics, especially virulence. The oxidative stress response is an important virulence attribute in several fungi. In this study, we assessed the enzymatic repertoire of responses to oxidative stress in the Pb18 isolate with different degrees of virulence. The virulence of attenuated Pb18 (aPb18) strain was recovered after several animal passages. Virulent strain (vPb18) showed an effective fungal oxidative stress response and several genes involved in response to oxidative stress were up-regulated in this isolate. These genes expressed the same profile when we recovered the phenotypic virulence in attenuated strain aPb18. Our study demonstrated that attenuated P. brasiliensis recovered their virulence after serial animal passages (vPb18), and this process positively modulated the fungus's antioxidant repertoire.