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Review
. 2023 Feb 13;12(2):385.
doi: 10.3390/antibiotics12020385.

Current and Future Pathways in Aspergillus Diagnosis

Radim Dobiáš  1   2 , David A Stevens  3   4 , Vladimír Havlíček  5   6
Affiliations
Review

Current and Future Pathways in Aspergillus Diagnosis

Radim Dobiáš et al. Antibiotics (Basel). .

Abstract

Aspergillus fumigatus has been designated by the World Health Organization as a critical priority fungal pathogen. Some commercially available diagnostics for many forms of aspergillosis rely on fungal metabolites. These encompass intracellular molecules, cell wall components, and extracellular secretomes. This review summarizes the shortcomings of antibody tests compared to tests of fungal products in body fluids and highlights the application of β-d-glucan, galactomannan, and pentraxin 3 in bronchoalveolar lavage fluids. We also discuss the detection of nucleic acids and next-generation sequencing, along with newer studies on Aspergillus metallophores.

Keywords: PCR; aspergillosis; bronchoalveolar lavage fluid; galactomannan; lateral flow; metagenomic next-generation sequencing; metallophore; serum assays; siderophore; β-d-glucan.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The role of Pentraxin 3 in the Aspergillus conidial model. IL-1β, interleukin 1-β; TNF-α, tumor necrosis factor α; FcγRIIa/CD32 proteins (also known as CD32 in the Cluster of Differentiation) are activating-type Fc receptors, the FcγRII family are active as receptors for immunoglobulins, and FcγRIIA acts as a receptor for pentraxins. The image was generated with Biorender software (https://biorender.com/ (accessed on 1 January 2023)).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Asynchronous germination of A. fumigatus conidia. Fungal hyphae development 7 h (A) and 10 h (B) postinoculation. The time course of conidial germination in flask cultures was recorded by bright-field microscopy at 60× magnification.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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