Strategy to Identify Virulence-Related Genes of the Pathogenic Fungus Trichosporon asahii Using an Efficient Gene-Targeting System

Trichosporon asahii is a pathogenic fungus that causes severe deep-seated mycosis in immunocompromised patients with neutropenia. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of T. asahii infection will facilitate the development of new therapeutic and preventive strategies. Two main obstacles have prevented the identification of virulence-related genes in T. asahii using molecular genetic techniques: the lack of experimental animal infection models for easy evaluation of T. asahii virulence and the lack of genetic recombination technology for T. asahii. To address these issues, we developed a silkworm infection model to quantitatively evaluate T. asahii virulence and a genetic recombination method to generate gene-deficient T. asahii mutants, enabling the identification of virulence factors of T. asahii. In this review, we propose a strategy for identifying virulence-related factors in T. asahii using a silkworm infection model and an efficient gene-targeting system.