{"doi":"10.3389/fcimb.2021.739027","title":"Cryptococcus neoformans Δsgl1 Vaccination Requires Either CD4+ or CD8+ T Cells for Complete Host Protection","abstract":"Cryptococcus neoformans is a fungal pathogen causing life-threatening meningoencephalitis in susceptible individuals. Fungal vaccine development has been hampered by the fact that cryptococcosis occurs during immunodeficiency. We previously reported that a C. neoformans mutant (Δ sgl1 ) accumulating sterylglucosides (SGs) is avirulent and provides complete protection to WT challenge, even under CD4 + T cell depletion, an immunodeficient condition commonly associated with cryptococcosis. We found high levels of SGs in the lungs post-immunization with Δ sgl1 that decreased upon fungal clearance. Th1 cytokines increased whereas Th2 cytokines concurrently decreased, coinciding with a large recruitment of leukocytes to the lungs. Depletion of B or CD8 + T cells did not affect either Δ sgl1 clearance or protection from WT challenge. Although CD4 + T cell depletion affected clearance, mice were still protected indicating that clearance of the mutant was not necessary for host protection. Protection was lost only when both CD4 + and CD8 + T cells were depleted, highlighting a previously unexplored role of fungal-derived SGs as an immunoadjuvant for host protection against cryptococcosis.","journal":"Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology","year":2021,"id":167497,"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":32,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.953,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":695824,"name":"Antonella Rella","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":329325,"name":"Maurizio Del Poeta","orcid":"0000-0001-8418-3120","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":365862,"name":"Tyler G. Normile","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":46,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:45:58.359801Z","pmid":"34568097","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":[]}