Environmental Status of Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii in Colombia.

Briggith-Nathalia Serna-Espinosa,Maribel Forero-Castro,Zilpa Adriana Sánchez-Quitian,Diomedes Guzmán-Sanabria,Patricia Escandón

doi:10.3390/jof7060410

Abstract

The genus Cryptococcus comprises more than 80 species, including C. neoformans and C. gattii, which are pathogenic to humans, mainly affecting the central nervous system. The two species differ in geographic distribution and environmental niche. C. neoformans has a worldwide distribution and is often isolated from bird droppings. On the contrary, C. gattii is reported in tropical and subtropical regions and is associated with Eucalyptus species. This review aims to describe the distribution of environmental isolates of the Cryptococcus neoformans species complex and the Cryptococcus gattii species complex in Colombia. A systematic investigation was carried out using different databases, excluding studies of clinical isolates reported in the country. The complex of the species of C. gattii is recovered mainly from trees of the genus Eucalyptus spp., while the complex of the species of C. neoformans is recovered mainly from avian excrement, primarily Columba livia (pigeons) excrement. In addition, greater positivity was found at high levels of relative humidity. Likewise, an association was observed between the presence of the fungus in places with little insolation and cold or temperate temperatures compared to regions with high temperatures.

Highlights

Published: 24 May 2021The genus Cryptococcus includes yeast fungi that develop a specific biotrophic association with different host plants and comprises more than 80 species, with two being pathogenic to humans
Data analysis was not performed in most of the studies, except when reporting the percentages of positive samples found for each species according to the nomenclature used in the studies were restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) of the URA5 gene and PCR fingerprinting with primer (GTG)5
Similar results were found in the regions of Popayán, Cundinamarca, Bogotá, and Cali (Figure 4). This species is strongly associated with avian droppings, generally from pigeons (C. livia) [87], which is consistent with the findings described Kwon-Chung and Bennett in 1984 [47], who established the primary environmental source of C. neoformans as being pigeon droppings, which was contrary to the findings reported by Cogliati et al, who that suggested that poultry feces is a secondary and transitory niche [53,93]

Summary

Introduction

Published: 24 May 2021The genus Cryptococcus includes yeast fungi that develop a specific biotrophic association with different host plants and comprises more than 80 species, with two being pathogenic to humans. VNI, VNB, VNII; and C. neoformans var. Neoformans serotype D with genotype VNIV; the serotype hybrid AD is associated with the VNIII genotype), while the complex of the species of C. gattii is divided into four genotypes (VGI, VGII, VGIII, and VGIV) [6,7,8,9]. It has been suggested that the actual classifications of C. neoformans species (known as C. neoformans variety grubii serotype A with VNB genotype, and VNI / VNII genotypes), C. deneoformans Neoformans with serotype D y genotype VNIV), and a hybrid classification composed of C. neoformans and C. deneoformans (with serotype AD and genotype VNIII) be recognized.

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