TY  - JOUR
AU  - Pougnet, Laurence
AU  - Le Gal, Solène
AU  - Nevez, Gilles
PY  - 2019
DA  - 2019/05/22
TI  - Airborne Interindividual Transmission of <i>Pneumocystis jirovecii</i>
JO  - OBM Genetics
SP  - 080
VL  - 03
IS  - 02
AB  - Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) is still the most frequent AIDS-defining disease in developed countries and also concerns patients with other immunodeficiencies not associated with HIV. Experimental studies on rodent models carried out in the early eighties have showed that Pneumocystis sp. can be transmitted by the airborne route. Unfortunately, this mode of acquisition and transmission has long been ignored by physicians, specifically because PCP in immunosuppressed patients was considered to result from reactivation of latent endogenous infection. This hypothesis has strongly been questioned and, currently, PCP is frequently considered to result from de novo acquisition of the fungus. This paradigm shift correlated with the development of highly sensitive detection techniques and molecular characterization of Pneumocystis sp. in animal models and humans. This review describes the main milestones that were determined by recent studies of Pneumocystis jirovecii (P. jirovecii) epidemiology, specifically on the airborne interindividual transmission of P. jirovecii.
SN  - 2577-5790
UR  - https://doi.org/10.21926/obm.genet.1902080
DO  - 10.21926/obm.genet.1902080
ID  - Pougnet2019
ER  -