“…Initial inoculum density was maximized to 1610 8 cells/mL in a 20 mL volume because the viability of Cryptococcus post-nebulization had not been previously determined, and yeast cells were larger (up to 10 mm) than typical aerosolized pathogens [55,59]. Our inoculum density is similar to previous reports used to initiate C. neoformans, Aspergillus, and bacterial aerosol infections, but our experiments utilized greater volume than previously reported [50,53,54,56,59]. The density of viable Cryptococcus yeast cells post-nebulization was equal to or greater than the inoculum density pre-nebulization.…”