Trichosporon asahii is a pathogenic fungus that causes deep mycosis in patients with neutropenia. Establishing an experimental animal model for quantitatively evaluating pathogenicity and developing a genetic recombination technology will help to elucidate the infection mechanism of T. asahii and promote the development of antifungal drugs. Here we established a silkworm infection model with a transgenic T. asahii strain expressing eGFP. Injecting T. asahii into silkworms eventually killed the silkworms. Moreover, the administration of antifungal agents, such as amphotericin B, fluconazole, and voriconazole, prolonged the survival time of silkworms infected with T. asahii. A transgenic T. asahii strain expressing eGFP was obtained using a gene recombination method with Agrobacterium tumefaciens. The T. asahii strain expressing eGFP showed hyphal formation in the silkworm hemolymph. Both hyphal growth and the inhibition of hyphal growth by the administration of antifungal agents were quantitatively estimated by monitoring fluorescence. Our findings suggest that a silkworm infection model using T. asahii expressing eGFP is useful for evaluating both the pathogenicity of T. asahii and the efficacy of antifungal drugs.

细孢曲霉是一种致病性真菌，可在中性粒细胞减少症患者中引起深部真菌病。建立用于定量评估致病性的实验动物模型并开发基因重组技术将有助于阐明麻黄木霉的感染机制并促进抗真菌药物的开发。在这里，我们建立了一个转基因表达eGFP的T. asahii菌株家蚕感染模型。向家蚕中注射麻黄锥虫最终杀死了家蚕。而且，抗真菌剂例如两性霉素B，氟康唑和伏立康唑的施用延长了被沙伊氏锥虫感染的家蚕的存活时间。转基因天麻用根癌农杆菌（Agrobacterium tumefaciens）基因重组法获得了表达eGFP的菌株。在T. asahii菌株表达EGFP显示该家蚕血液菌丝形成。通过监测荧光定量地估计菌丝生长和通过施用抗真菌剂对菌丝生长的抑制。我们的研究结果表明，使用表达eGFP的Asahii的家蚕感染模型可用于评估Asahii的致病性和抗真菌药的功效。