Aspergillus fumigatus is the most reported causative pathogen associated with the increasing global incidences of aspergilloses, with the health of immunocompromised individuals mostly at risk. Monitoring the pathogenicity of A. fumigatus strains to identify virulence factors and evaluating the efficacy of potent active agents against this fungus in animal models are indispensable in current research effort. Caenorhabditis elegans has been successfully utilized as an infection model for bacterial and dimorphic fungal pathogens because of the advantages of being time-efficient, and less costly. However, application of this model to the filamentous fungus A. fumigatus is less investigated. In this study, we developed and optimized a stable and reliable C. elegans model for A. fumigatus infection, and demonstrated the infection process with a fluorescent strain. Virulence results of several mutant strains in our nematode model demonstrated high consistency with the already reported pathogenicity pattern in other models. Furthermore, this C. elegans-A. fumigatus infection model was optimized for evaluating the efficacy of current antifungal drugs. Interestingly, the azole drugs in nematode model prevented conidial germination to a higher extent than amphotericin B. Overall, our established C. elegans infection model for A. fumigatus has potential applications in pathogenicity evaluation, antifungal agents screening, drug efficacy evaluation as well as host-pathogen interaction studies.

烟曲霉是报告最多的致病病原体，与全球曲霉病发病率不断上升有关，免疫功能低下个体的健康大多面临风险。监测烟曲霉菌株的致病性以鉴定毒力因子并评估有效活性剂在动物模型中对抗这种真菌的功效是当前研究工作中必不可少的。秀丽隐杆线虫由于具有省时、成本低的优点，已成功用作细菌和二态真菌病原体的感染模型。然而，将该模型应用于丝状真菌烟曲霉的研究较少。在本研究中，我们开发并优化了稳定可靠的烟曲霉感染线虫模型，并用荧光菌株演示了感染过程。我们的线虫模型中几种突变菌株的毒力结果与其他模型中已报道的致病性模式具有高度一致性。此外，这种线虫-A。优化了烟曲霉感染模型，用于评估当前抗真菌药物的疗效。有趣的是，线虫模型中的唑类药物比两性霉素 B 更能阻止分生孢子萌发。总的来说，我们建立的烟曲霉线虫感染模型在致病性评价、抗真菌药物筛选、药效评价以及宿主等方面具有潜在的应用价值。 -病原体相互作用研究。