Saturation transposon mutagenesis enables genome-wide identification of genes required for growth and fluconazole resistance in the human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans.

ABSTRACT: Fungi can cause devastating invasive infections, typically in immunocompromised patients. Treatment is complicated both by the evolutionary similarity between humans and fungi and by the frequent emergence of drug resistance. Studies in fungal pathogens have long been slowed by a lack of high-throughput tools and community resources that are common in model organisms. Here we demonstrate a high-throughput transposon mutagenesis and sequencing (TN-seq) system in Cryptococcus neoformans that enables genome-wide determination of gene essentiality. We employed a random forest machine learning approach to classify the Cryptococcus neoformans genome as essential or nonessential, predicting 1,465 essential genes, including 302 that lack human orthologs. These genes are ideal targets

SUBMITTER: Billmyre RB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11312461 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature