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Molecular and Cellular Biology, January 1999, p. 745-750, Vol. 19, No. 1
0270-7306/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Melanization of Cryptococcus neoformans in Murine Infection

Joshua D. Nosanchuk,1 Philippe Valadon,2 Marta Feldmesser,1 and Arturo Casadevall1,3,*

Departments of Medicine,1 Cell Biology,2 and Microbiology and Immunology,3 Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York 10461

Received 9 June 1998/Returned for modification 3 August 1998/Accepted 18 September 1998

Cryptococcus neoformans is a fungus that is pathogenic in humans and that can produce melanin in vitro. Melanization is associated with virulence, but there is no evidence that melanin is made during infection. Melanins are difficult to study because they are amorphous and insoluble. Melanin-binding peptides from a phage display library were used to demonstrate that C. neoformans makes melanin-like compounds in tissue. Melanin-binding peptides were characterized by a high proportion of positively charged and aromatic residues. Two other methods, demonstration of an antibody response to melanin in mice infected with C. neoformans and analysis of yeast cell walls in infected tissue by light microscopy, were used to support these findings. The demonstration that C. neoformans melanizes in tissue has important implications for pathogenesis and drug discovery.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Golding 701, 1300 Morris Park Avenue, Bronx, NY 10461. Phone: (718) 430-3659. Fax: (718) 430-8968. E-mail: casadeva{at}aecom.yu.edu.

Molecular and Cellular Biology, January 1999, p. 745-750, Vol. 19, No. 1
0270-7306/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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