{"doi":"10.1101/2020.08.27.270843","title":"A dissemination-prone morphotype enhances extrapulmonary organ entry by the fungus <i>Cryptococcus neoformans</i>","abstract":"SUMMARY Environmental pathogens, which move from ecological niches to mammalian hosts, must adapt to dramatically different environments. Microbes that disseminate farther, including the fungal meningitis pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans , require additional adaptation to diverse tissues. When C. neoformans enters the lungs, infecting cells (&lt;10 μm diameter) enlarge (&gt;30 μm diameter), then form a heterogeneous population. The brain contains uniformly small cells (∼7 μm). We demonstrate that formation of a small C. neoformans morphotype – called “seed” cells due to their disseminating ability – is critical for extrapulmonary organ entry. Seed cell formation is triggered by environmental factors, including C. neoformans ’ environmental niche, pigeon guano. The underlying trigger, phosphate, can be released by tissue damage, potentially establishing a feed-forward loop of seed cell formation and dissemination. We demonstrate that C. neoformans ’ size variation is not just a continuum but inducible subpopulations that change host interactions to facilitate microbe survival and spread.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2020,"id":127277,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9604,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":345439,"name":"Brianna Brammer","orcid":"0000-0002-3042-7326","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":576593,"name":"Krystal Y. Chung","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":345437,"name":"Morgan A. Wambaugh","orcid":"0000-0001-6663-2017","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":575883,"name":"Joseph M. Bednarek","orcid":"0000-0001-8000-704X","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":107321,"name":"Li Guo","orcid":"0000-0003-4430-7269","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":345441,"name":"Jessica C. S. Brown","orcid":"0000-0002-3255-1486","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":345438,"name":"Steven T. Denham","orcid":"0000-0002-3982-3835","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":146,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:15:30.930746Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}