RESEARCH ARTICLE


Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Asthma-Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Overlap Syndrome (ACOS) are Risk Factors for Cryptococcosis



Aline B. Mahler Pereira1, Alexandre P. Rogerio1, *
1 Departamento de Clínica Médica, Universidade Federal of Triângulo Mineiro, Laboratory of Experimental Immunopharmacology, Rua Manoel Carlos, Uberaba – MG, Brazil

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2020
Volume: 11
First Page: 1
Last Page: 4
Publisher Id: TOALLJ-11-1
DOI: 10.2174/1874838402011010001

Article History:

Received Date: 08/10/2019
Revision Received Date: 26/03/2020
Acceptance Date: 12/04/2020
Electronic publication date: 04/06/2020
Collection year: 2020

© 2020 Pereira and Rogerio.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Departamento de Clínica Médica, Universidade Federal of Triângulo Mineiro, Laboratory of Experimental Immunopharmacology, Universidade Federal do Triângulo Mineiro, Rua Manoel Carlos, 162, 38025-380 – Uberaba – MG, Brazil; Phone: +55 34 3318 5814; E-mail: alexandre.rogerio@uftm.edu.br


Abstract

Cryptococcosis is a fungal infection of global importance affecting the central nervous system and other organs such as the lungs. The severity of cryptococcosis is largely dependent on the integrity of the host immune system. The protection to cryptococcosis is associated with Th1 immune response while Th2 results in susceptibility to Cryptococcus infection. Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease commonly coordinated by Th2 immune response. The airway inflammation in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients is characterized by increased neutrophils, macrophages, proteases, IL-6, IL-8, and Th1 cytokines. Asthma-Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Overlap Syndrome (ACOS) patients present phenotype that shares Th1 (COPD) and Th2 (asthma). There are several risk factors associated with Cryptococcus infection, including smoking, that cause airway remodeling and dysregulated and damaging airway inflammation.

Keywords: Cryptococcosis, Smoking, Inflammation, COPD, ACOS, Cryptococcus infection.