AUTHOR=Chen Junsong , Shao Jiasheng , Dai Min , Fang Wei , Yang Ya-li 

TITLE=Adaptive immunology of Cryptococcus neoformans infections—an update

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Immunology

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2023.1174967

DOI=10.3389/fimmu.2023.1174967

ISSN=1664-3224

ABSTRACT=The fungal genus Cryptococcus is a group of pathogens with different genotypic and phenotypic diversity that can lead to Cryptococcosis in healthy individuals and immunocompromised patients. With the emergence of the HIV pandemic, Cryptococcosis, mainly meningoencephalitis, afflicts HIV infected patients with severe dysfunction of T cells, it also occurs in recipients who received solid organ transplantation and patients with auto-immune diseases who took long-term immunosuppressive agents as well as those with unidentified immunodeficiency. The clinical outcome of the disease was primarily determined by the immune response resulting from the interplay between host immune system and Cryptococcus. As we knew, the majority of human infections are generated by the species Cryptococcus neoformans (C. neoformans), which means nearly all immunological research had been focused on C. neoformans infections. Herein, this review introduces the understanding upon the role of adaptive immunity during the infection of C. neoformans in human and animal models in the past half decade.