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Cryptococcal dermotropism in the rhesus monkey

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Abstract

An unexpected result was obtained from the intravenous injection ofCryptococcus neoformans into rhesus monkeys. We had sought to develop pulmonary lesions, but instead cutaneous lesions occurred.

Each of seven monkeys received five millionCryptococcus neoformans cells intravenously. On the ninth to fifteenth day an acneform cutaneous eruption and nodular sub-cutaneous swellings appeared in all the monkeys and disappeared spontaneously by about the thirtieth day. Biopsies on the ninth day showed free cryptococcal cells with polymorphonuclear response. Biopsy on the twenty-second day showed persistent abscesses with a surrounding shell of giant cells containing shrunken and partially digested cryptococcal organisms. Chest x-rays on the fifteenth day showed no pulmonary lesions. None of the monkeys died spontaneously. When they were sacrificed between the 37th and 102nd day, the lungs were devoid, both grossly and microscopically, or cryptococcal lesions. However, a fulminating cryptococcosis of the right bulbus oculi was found on one monkey and a minute cryptococcal granuloma in the brain of another. Skin testing with cryptococcin was negative before the experimental injection, but became positive at three weeks. Reinjection ofC. neoformans i.v. in one of the monkeys resulted in a second crop of dermal lesions, though of smaller extent and of shorter duration.

The 39.5° C temperature of the rhesus monkey may be a factor in the paucity of pulmonary lesions and the development of cutaneous ones.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Patologiá, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de El Salvador, San Salvador, El Salvador

    Guillermo Linares

  2. Department of Pathology, Rutgers Medical School, USA

    Roger Denio Daker (Professor)

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  1. Guillermo Linares
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Additional information

Aided by Grant AI 08454, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, U.S. Public Health Service. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, Minneapolis, Minn., May 2–7, 1971.

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Linares, G., Daker, R.D. Cryptococcal dermotropism in the rhesus monkey. Mycopathologia et Mycologia Applicata 46, 17–32 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02051893

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